I have heard many things about Sicily and the first thing that comes to mind for many people when thinking about Sicily is the Godfather and all the mafia connotations that come along with that. So going into the trip down there my friend Eric and I already had some skewed perceptions, the majority of which turned out to be true. Here are a few examples, some mundane, other not so much: Sicily has some of the best beaches in Italy along with some of the wildest countryside, Sicilians drive like mad man, Sicilians will readily screw over foreigners, the mafia still does run things. Two of these were proved almost immediately on landing in Palermo. The landing strip in Palermo is situated between the sea and a massive rock outcropping that must be close to 300 feet tall looming over the airport. This was just a taste of the natural beauty to come.
We had a rental car for the weekend (reserved through easycar.com, which easily has the cheapest rates out there) and it became readily apparent that driving laws in Sicily are truly on suggestions, and how fast you go on the highway was directly equivalent to how fast your car could go. We had a new Fiat punto which certainly held its own, but we were routinely passed by Alpha Romeos and BMWs who must have been going close to 100 mph. There are also frequently times when a two lane road is used as if there were another lane in the middle for cars to pass. This becomes somewhat of a team effort, as the car being passed pulls as far to the right as possible, the car passing floors it drives directly down the middle of the road, and the car coming the other direction hopes the shoulder holds together as he edges as far over as possible on his side. A somewhat frightening experience when all you see is two cars bearing down on you taking up a lane and a half.
Driving from Palermo practically due south through the interior of Sicily along Autostrada (highway) A29 is one of the more beautiful strips of road I've ever driven down. Sicily is just one vineyard and olive orchard after another. The uncultivated land is all very dry tall grass and that is combined in all the farm land in mixed shades of green that give the countryside the look of a never ending checker board painted by Picasso with a hundred subtly different greens and browns.
We spent the bulk of our time there on the beach but we did have one cultural day. We drove to Agrigento to see the Valley of Temples, part of the ancient Greek city of Akragas, founded around 570 BC. Sicily and Southern Italy were a part of Magna Grecia (Greater Greece) and the southern coast of Sicily (centered around Agrigento) has the highest concentration of Greek temples still standing to this day. The Valley of Temples is actually a ridge above a valley that is home to five temples in various states of preservation that were built throughout the 4th century BC. The best preserved is below, with Eric and me standing in front of it, Temple of Concordia.
However, our trip the temples was curtailed by two unfortunate factors. Just before the above picture was taken, my flip flop broke, see picture below, and shortly after Eric blood sugar bottomed out. Naturally we were about a fifteen minute walk across unfortunately sharp gravel back to the car. With our visit cut short Eric and I slowly made our way back to the car, me quasi dragging my right foot and Eric trudging ahead.
Although I would have liked to spend a bit more time at the temples it was great to finally see an original Greek temple in person after years of studying them. While not quite the Parthenon, the temples here were impressive and what I found very interesting was the quality of the stone the Greeks used (not sure exactly what kind) and its almost sand washed look. Had I gone straight the the temples without seeing a little bit of Sicily first I might not have recognized it, but the stone is the same that is used all across Sicily still today. Most evidently in larger churches, but even in smaller buildings. The stone, whether its 2500 years old or 50, has a sandy quality that looks worn down regardless of its age. Its effect gives the whole island a sense of timelessness, not in the sense that it doesn't age, but that it has all aged an uncertain amount. A piece of stone may have been used two thousand years ago and now makes up the beam above a small church door, but because it all has the same image it's hard to tell exactly when things come from. Driving through the countryside there are plenty of ruined buildings that could be from year 1000 or 1960, simple structures made of stone that have probably followed similar construction methods for eons.
After the Valley of Temples we headed inland to a small town called Villarosa where Eric's great-grand parents were born and married. I asked most of the Sicilians we came across the two days before and none of them had heard of the town, obviously not the biggest dot on the map. As we drove north from Agrigento the mixture of brown and green that was about even near the coast slowly shifted toward more and more brown until final the rolling landscape was almost all a light brown dotted with the occasional patch of vineyard or olive orchard. We turned off the highway and drove up the side of a large hill, switchbacks all the way, and made our way into the center of town.
We parked the car and walked into the bar (coffee shop) and asked with there was a restaurant open for lunch. We were informed there were two restaurants in town and the guy we asked very kindly walked us up to the main piazza and pointed down the street to the restaurant. He then very enthusiastically shook both our hands, guess they don't get many visitors. Lunch was nothing special but after lunch I asked the owner of the restaurant, a man somewhere in his 60s, if he knew Eric family name, Agnello. He said that he did but they had all either moved away or died. There was not much to see in the town, the restaurant owner actually laughed when I asked, so after lunch we hopped back in the car and head to Sciacca. The picture below is Eric standing in front of the church were his great-grand parents were married.
Aside from the trip to Agrigento and Villarosa, we spent the bulk of the trip behaving as you should in Sicily in the summer, hanging out on the beach, drinking cold white wine and eating fish. The closest town to the resort where Florian is working is called Sciacca, and is little more than a port city. There is one main town square that has a beautiful terrace the overlooks the port, a few small bars and a good pizza place or two. Nearby there a few small beaches, and that's about it.
We spent almost a full days at the beach in Eraclea Minoa and spent 2 hours floating around on a paddle boat with 8 people, certainly more than they were designed for.
While sitting around the beach we heard a few stories that confirmed the third and fourth preconceptions of Sicily.
Two British guys run the golf shop at the resort where Florian is working, the Verdura, and they are in the market for a car. The day we were on the beach they had been to see a car in the morning which one of the Italians working at the resort had found for them. The price that had been discussed over the phone, with the Italian speaking on their behalf was 4,000 euros. When they arrived in person and the seller realized they were not Sicilian the price jumped to 6,000. No questions, no negotiations, just a new price for foreigners.
The other stories we heard were about the problems the hotel has been having with the mob. The architect for the project is Sicilian, but not the one the mob wanted, so his car has been blown up three times. He was never in it, but still. When they finished construction on the top fifteen largest suites they were immediately burned. They have massive bullet proof panes of glass on presidential suite which has been shot on a number of occasions, not breaking it, but damaging enough that it needs to be replaced, at a cost of 10,000 euros a pane. The resort recently opened and apparently things are running a little more smoothly these days, I guess they found the right people to pay off.
Old men sitting in the main piazza at sunset just haning out, apparently the building behind them is the town's mens' club where they play cards and shoot pool.
Florian and I sitting outside his local bar, Caffe delle Rosse in front of the church below.
The basilica in Sciacca, with an oddly unfinished facade.
Florian, me, Daniela and Martina enjoying a glass of wine and some watermelon after dinner in the little piazza in front of the apartment Eric and I were staying in.
My attempt at being artistic on the beach at the nature reserve Eric and I stumbled upon while driving around the coast near Sciacca.
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