Today we have come to the beautiful hill town of Modica. We are here for their patron saint's day, the Festa di San Giorgio. Tonight, the statue of San Giorgio, riding on his horse, will be brought out of the church and paraded around town. Lots of fireworks will accompany San Giorgio on his ride around town.
We arrived here after a 2+ hour bus ride from Siracusa. The first thing I saw was a poster for a bonsai show, from the Bonsai Club of Messina, Modica Chapter. After checking into our hotel, we found the show on the main street. There were really nice bonsai, many yamadori (collected trees from the wild) including olives, oaks, rosemary and carob. They had amazing trunks, with lots of deadwood. I asked them if they knew a bonsai master I have learned from, Marco Invernizzi, and indeed they knew him.
For lunch today we were recommended to go to a nearby place that had a 19€ many course meal. Trattoria A pulia ro vino. It was full up, and ordering a la carte was not allowed but who'd want to?
the antipasti course had eleven items: a very thin sliced grilled eggplant, marinated lightly in balsamic, with italian parsley; a fried ball of rice with cheese and peas and tomatoes inside; a very thin savory lasagna, 3 layers separated by light cheese, and the very top layer was thin light baked wheat; a local very soft delicate cheese that felt like it melted into your mouth like a whipped cream cheese but of course much better; a perfect dry light thin well cured salame; whole wheat bread toast with melted butter and minced fresh parsey; triangular white bread very lightly fried not oily at all; a tender omelette spread with greens and cheese, rolled up, sliced into thin rounds; boiled brown eggs; and green olives.
This was followed by primi and there were 3 of these: First a thick soup with thick, rope-like pasta called lolli, and big, flat brown broad beans, in a thick broth. This was followed by two pastas, a ravioli filled with cheese in a tangy tomato sauce, and a shell like twisted pasta with a tomato sauce with tiny pieces of savory pork sausage.
Then the main secondi course, there were two of these, pork and pork sausage in a tomato sauce, and boiled beef, with a "contorno", a side of yummy scalloped potatoes with sweet onions and lots of very good olive oil.
There were two desserts also, a traditional tender gelatinous thing made of wheat that tasted fragrant, so hard to describe, very subtle, and much better than it looked ; and crispy cannoli with a creamy ricotta middle and chocolate bits.
This was all washed down with a local red house wine and finished off with a thick,sweet espresso.
A great meal!
Time for a nap and the off to the festival!...........
.......okay, we're back from the big procession. We've perched ourselves on the roof terrace of our nice hotel, Le Magnolie (at only 70€, a very nice find), with a lovely bottle of Cerasuolo di Vittoria (a wine from here in Modica, a delicious, fruity, very easy down the throat wine), a plate of the local cheese, some dry salami and some bread. We were going to go out to dinner, but why bother? We have a view of the whole town and fireworks are going on above the town as San Giorgio is making his way around town, eventually going back to his church, when there will be more fireworks.
It all started this afternoon when the statue of San Giorgio, Modica's patron saint, was carried out of the church by many strong men. There were hundreds of locals (we were two of the very few tourists attending) watching when there were loud booms and giant fountains of blue, red and yellow confetti were blown into the air. San Giorgio, saint george, is on horseback waving a glittering sword, and his horse is trampling a green dragon which looks very uncomfortable with a spear sticking in its gullet. Since he is riding horseback, he has to move fast! The men carrying San Giorgio were followed by a marching band and they, along with the huge crowd that included us, literally ran up the streets into the upper town. They wear red t shirts (which on the front advertise the "Thousand and One Nights Bar" and on the back is a picture of S. Giorgio) and flow upstream like a red river. The marching band (mostly high school aged kids, both boys and girls) kept playing the same song, over and over, the song of San Giorgio. We marched through the streets, where people on their balconies would shower San Giorgio with even more confetti. Eventually, we kind of ran out of steam and let San Giorgio and his followers go on their merry way. We were by this time way up in the high reaches of the upper town, but made it back down for a nice gelato of the local chocolate and amaretto.
Back at our hotel, we discovered that they have a wine bar (in an actual cave, carved in e cliff behind us) and the hotel's concierge, Giuliana, brought the wine ( red Cerasuolo di Vittoria, winery is Cantina Avide, 2006) in beautiful glasses up to the terrace, with the cheese and salami, so who needs dinner? We are now looking out over the whole, beautiful town of Modica, waiting for San Giorgio to come back to his church, where there will be a huge fireworks display. Hopefully, we won't have run out of wine by then.
We can't rave enough about this hotel. It is an old house on one of the tiny walking streets/stairways off the main "road"', Umberto I (which used to be the creek until 1902).... The room has vaulted ceilings, the bathroom is huge and has very stylish Italian ceramic fixtures, the bed is a perfect firm King, the sheets are so smooth. The upstairs terrace has gentle sconce lighting low down so you can see each other and still see the glories of the town on all sides. We also love Modica, with it's hundreds of curvy streets, arches, gateways, balconies, wrought iron, gargoyles. Everything is light colored sandstone, and here and there the old stone will have weathered so much that it looks like ropy coral while the carvings on the other side of the doorway are still as sharp as if they were sculpted last week. Many buildings must be empty, with the doorways rotting, others are restored. Our side of the river canyon was for ordinary folks, the far side has magnificent palaces and churches.
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