Sicily, a place to love forever

First, I need to tell my readers, that this blog may read differently. My present blog app in which I write and create my stories and pictures ceased to exist, being crushed under the weight of IOS 9, which the apple users among you know, is the latest version of the system that makes apple products function, or in this case cease to function. Thus I am shopping around for a successor app. Ok, we stayed for a week in Taormina, Sicily in the Schuler Residence, a home we rented, that overlooks the Ionian Sea which separates Sicily from the Italian mainland. It is smack in the middle of the town, which is clinging to the mountain side.

Len and Brenda on the Schuler Residence terrace

The terrace was large and provided nice shadow

April is preseason, so the crowds that visit Taormina, the most lauded tourist town on this island are minimal, although there are every day 5 to 10 parked buses down the mountain on their assigned parking lot, with little shuttle buses constantly cruising up and downwards. Warning: arriving in this city in midsummer will require shoulder to shoulder marching through the narrow streets of this beautiful mountain town.

Etna from our balcony

From our balcony one sees the foggy shape of mount Etna dominating the landscape in one direction and when changing our focus seawards the azure colors stretch towards the horizon.

The Ionian Sea from our balcony

It's spring and the flowers along the roadsides mixed with the fragrance of oranges and lemons beguile the senses.

Is this spring or what?

It is definitely shorts and t-shirts weather till late into the evening, making the dining experience on the little terraces, that dot the town a top experience, not only because the Italian food is to die for, whether it is the fresh fish of the day or a pizza, but also because the hustle and bustle of the handsome Italian waiters (at least that is what the ladies among us suggest they are) gives that special 'I can't believe I am here' feel.

Taormina terrace, pools, and views of Etna

We, are the two of us and Len and Brenda our easy to please travel mates, who pleaded with us to join them in, for us, a revisiting of this island, which we had done in an era before our blogging days.

Taormina's main shopping street

You will find pictures from not only Toarmina, but also Syracuse and treks inland around Mt Etna and towards the north coast, with Sandee carefully maneuvering our large audi station wagon through narrow two way streets, fit for one way traffic only anywhere else in the world but Italy.

And here Italian drivers although knowing the rules of the road, have decided to completely ignore them, because every Italian needs to show that governments and laws only rule everybody else, but he or she whom we meet in their cars.

Cars, by the way, that are showing their past battle scars or mopeds driven by people in a hurry going through red, swerving on pedestrian walkways or passing you on both sides, crossing over in front of you even if only a few feet separates our car from the car in front of us. But the main sense of beauty is the biggest gift this island brings to its visitors in spring. All around us are the already mentioned assault of fragrances and colors on the roadsides, and I mean really everywhere, everywhere, whether they are crops to be farmed or wild flowers that spring up this season and dot the hilly landscape for as far as the eye reaches.

Oranges everywhere, I wish you could smell them like we did

Just one of those roadside pictures

Our heavily dented 60,000 km old audi is way too big for most roads, which requires a very defensive stance of driving and often brings gasps and or amused laughter from the backbench. We cruised for 1800 km around the eastern part of the island and stayed at and or visited: Taormina, Syracuse, Tindaris, Cefalu, Castelgirone, Enna, Piazza Armerina and Modica and of course Mt Etna.

One travels through villages dotted in nowhere land, how do they make a living?

Monasteries with large churches and no city in the neighborhood

Len and Brenda saw the larger amount of above mentioned towns. After they left we visited Modico and Piazza Armerina. The latter town features the worlds most complete remains of a Roman villa with 62 rooms, many of them showing pictorial mosaic surfaces, that according to some numbers guy, took 21,000 working days to complete.

Below in silence pictures of the Roman village in Piazza Armerina:

The four of us fell in love with Taormina, because it is most likely the best conserved, although commercialized, mountain town. The inhabitants of this town must remind themselves daily how lucky they are in being allowed to host the endless stream of well spending tourists, as it is tauted and promoted by the likes of Hemingway who lived here some years.

Villa Comunale, once owned by the Lord and Lady Trevelyan ( above couple) endowed to the city, now city park

Pictures of the park

Residence in Taormina in a back alley, notice the 3 legged lady Medusa, (official symbol of Sicily, found in its flag f.e.) signifying the three capes of Sicily forming a triangle.

A bulbous tree, that amazed us found in many places, but I don't know what the name is

Modica is one of the many baroque cities that were recreated after a 1693 earthquake that destroyed most of the then existing towns in south east Sicily. All these cities were rebuilt in the baroque style of those times by well known architects under the patronage of the then nominally ruler: Spain, but financed by the very wealthy aristocracy in Sicily, who controlled the agricultural output of the island without paying dues to the Spanish King.

Church of the twelve apostles in downtown Modica, across from our 5 room inn

One of the many twist and turns in Modica

A little theater in Modica

So many street scenes that enchant all over Italy

The richest families in those cities competed in a drive to outdo other families in neighboring cities in the rebuilding bonanza. And although Modica is only one of many and maybe not the most imposing town, its location in a gorge makes the town very visible walking the main street in town, while looking upwards in both directions.

We enjoyed the national holiday of Mussolini's fall from power.

Modica's Cathedral placed halfway up de gorge side with below a picture of the interior

An extra surprise in visiting Modica is that you arrive in the chocolate city of Sicily. It's 400 years of chocolate making is based on the recipes of the Aztec people, which techniques came compliments of the Spanish rulers, who as previously mentioned were lording over the lands in those days. Basically the chocolate made here is using the full cocoa bean without separating the cocoa butter and mixing it with granulated sugar at certain temperature ranges using rolling pins.The dark chocolate mixed with spices has a grainy lingering taste, that is definitely memorable. Our hosts here are a baron and baroness, down enough on their luck to advertise their regal downtown home on booking.com. They don't speak any language but Italian and gush enthusiastically about the must see, do and or eat in their town, speaking faster and faster in demonstrating their desire to be good hosts.

Below 2 shots of the inn we stayed in owned by the baron and baroness financially down on their luck, but dressed to the nines as aristocracy should do.

I do a lot of "comprehending nodding", impressing my bride with short translations of what I perceive to have understood. The cavernous housing, still showing its former glory, is because of its location: top. The facilities however are: so so, especially the bathtub with hand shower that gushes a piddly stream lukewarm water, requiring one to rush "showering" kneeled in the tub holding the short shower implement in one hand while shampooing ones hair with the other hand. The other mentioned cities each had their own endearing factor, with as exception Castelgirone, taking hours to drive to and fro, where we found everything closed thus we turned around with a limone gelato as our only prize.

The park in Castelgirone was worth a quick visit

Syracuse, Cefalu and Enna each showed their own beauty and hopefully the pictures will do the talking. The large city of Syracuse is best admired by visiting the old port. This city was the western jewel for the then dominating states of Sparta and Corinth, built 2700 years ago, before Athens started to shine. Archimedes was born here. Cefalu a northern ancient fishing town is bypassed by most visitors on the way to or from Palermo on the toll road.

Syracuse above, below two pictures, one of the modern harbor, one of the entrance to the maze of alleys that was the old port.

Tindaris is basically a church/monastery on a mountain overlooking the Eolian Sea, with its dotted islands and all we found there was a bus load of children on their annual educational day trip.

Below multiple pictures of the city of Enna perched on a steep hill:

Enna's fortress

The central Sicilian mountain town of Enna, almost as old as the earliest civilizations that inhabited the island, because it was almost impossible to conquer this town on a hill, towering 3000 ft above the valley floor and most likely the oldest city in Sicily, where traces of habitation were found as early as 1400 before Christ. The city is also called the navel of Sicily, with myths like the abduction of Persephone the maiden being carried off by Pluto, God of the underworld. Almost always treachery and deceit was the tool to take the town.

Below pictures of the Monastery of Tindaris, high on a hill at the northern coast of Sicily overlooking the Eolian Sea

What do you ask is the best reason to visit Sicily, and believe me, we will be back in Sicily one day, and the answer is: that back in time feeling you get, when eating what people ate here for centuries, the people that make you feel welcome, the landscape that must have looked that way in the last centuries (some roads looked older than Methusalah) and of course as previously mentioned in April you can add the flowers and the smells of spring.

Pictures of Cefalu:

See the kids all holding a rope to stay together as they visit Cefalu with their teacher

A modern pharmacy in the two centuries old pharmacy building

No horse poop will be seen on Cefalu's streets

A final Sicilian story about the birth of the Sicilian bastards. No this is not a tale about philandering males, although I suspect they wander there too, but about prickly cacti pears. A dispute between neighbors about where one land began and the other ones ended, led to an incident whereby one angry owner cut the blossoming cactus on the disputed area down. It led to a second blossoming of the indomitable cactus, with much larger fruit. This finding did not lead to peace necessarily but to a agricultural crop as in this area of Sicily fields and fields of commercial cacti farming has sprung up.

Below a Cacti farm: