Sicily south and (some) centre

While up in the centre of Sicily we went to the town of Enna, the highest provincial capital in Sicily, situated over 3000 feet above sea level.  It was a very long climb up to the town (for Sally, not for us!), but the views when we arrived were truly spectacular.

As we travelled around we noticed that while they have Christmas trees here, they are not as we know them – the fir trees here are not the classic Christmas tree shape, and I guess it’s a long way to bring them from Northern Europe where they are more prolific.  So they improvise in a way we don’t see at home.

We saw the recycled bottle version in both glass and plastic, complete with fairy lights in several places.  Whether this is intended to send out a recycling message – much needed – as well as celebrating Christmas we can on speculate.

In Piazza Armerina the extent to which Sicily has been ‘visited’ by others is well demonstrated at the castle built by King Martin of Aragon in the 14^th C.  It was over a millennium after the arrival of the Phoenicians and Greeks that the Spanish turned up to have their go at occupying Sicily.  After the next lot of conquerors demolished the bigger part of the castle, someone (we’re not sure who) came up with a regeneration scheme to develop the brownfield site for constructive use.  Unfortunately it looked as if a further regeneration project is now needed to make best use of the site for the 21^st C.

We noticed that they seem to have a different way of doing their ‘deaths’ notices here.  We saw quite a few, but this collection, all for the same person, were bigger and more numerous than usual.   Reading them (as best we can!), Giovanna was obviously one of the ‘great and good’ and an all-round good egg!

The Villa Del Casale is a Roman villa with reputedly the best preserved and most extensive Roman mosaics in the world.  We managed to turn up on the first Sunday of the month, when apparently many museums and the like in Italy offer free entry to encourage the Italian public to enjoy and appreciate their heritage.  Of course they can’t discriminate against other EU citizens and we were happy to join in with the local traditions! The mosaics are stunning; these small samples do not do them justice.

And, contrary to what may have been said at the time, there is good evidence that the bikini was not first worn in the early 1950s on the beach at St. Tropez by Brigitte Bardot!

Having arrived at the Villa in the late afternoon the day before, we ate in the restaurant right next door.  We asked if we could stop on their car park, which was agreeable to them.  Our meal was so good that the following lunch-time after seeing the mosaics went to the restaurant for our lunch.

We got chatting to the owner, whose English was better than our Italian, and ended up trying a free sample of his liqueur made from cactus fruits – unusual, nice to try but not it won’t be favourite, and purchasing five litres of his own olive oil which we had sampled and enjoyed on our salads.

On our travels we noticed fields of cacti planted in rows as well as the usual wild cacti.  We don’t think this is the Aloe Vera cactus and wonder what commercial use it has.  We did notice that all the fruits had been picked from the cacti in the fields, but would be surprised if it would make a commercial proposition to grow them to make cactus liqueur.  Does anyone know what these cacti are farmed for?

Shortly after we had our first sight of Mt Etna in the distance

Modica is one of eight towns destroyed by the 1693 earthquake which were rebuilt in ‘Sicilian’ Baroque style and are all UNESCO heritage sights.  We could tell they are on the UNESCO list from our first sighting of Japanese on our trip so far – a sure sign that you are in a world heritage site!

Where we stopped at one end of town is a good example of how hard the Italians had to work to establish a modern road system.  There are viaducts everywhere and there are plenty of them which are a kilometre or more long.  The Italians were respected for their road-building skills when I started working, as they were ahead of us at the time in their development of modern highways.  Unfortunately the maintenance regime is not keeping up with the vast amount of expansion joints, which you rattle and thump over as you drive over each viaduct.

We never cease to be amazed at the extent to which English is used in the shops and streets of Italy, Spain, Germany,  ….. everywhere we go - even France!  Amongst the more common, B & B is B & B everywhere.

We’d heard about the Barber of Seville – this was obviously the Barber of Modica.  The barber’s pole was no great surprise, but surely there must be an Italian word for ‘barber’?   ….. Maybe it is ‘barber’; we’ll have to look it up!!

A fine example if ever we saw one!

Finally, we have now repaired to a campsite where we have done copious amounts of washing, a little lounging in the sun and have a proper wifi.