Where's Blair?

My alone time Sicily came to an end when Annie joined me in Palermo. The morning before she arrived, I drove to San Vito lo Capo. The beach town has a gorilla-shaped mountain looming over it which had been beconing me from the window of the Tuna Tower. The town is a few streets of low rectangular buildings with garlands and tea lights strung between. It reminded me of Merida or other pre-Riveria Maya Yucatan towns, set on a white sand beach with sapphire clear waters. I made a note that it would be a good place to spend a few days on a future trip.

After scooping Annie at the airport, we headed to downtown Palermo. This time I was ready for the ZTL – I had pre-registered the car to be allowed to enter and paid ahead for parking near our hotel on a special app. Of course, when we arrived, after spending a full five minutes trying to interpret the arcane signage, I realized that the ZTL is open on Saturdays anyway. Foiled again.

We set out on a crawl across the old city for culinary treats. Creative cocktails behide the apse of the duomo at Ferramenta, Tunisian specialities at La Traviata, and of course, gelato at Paradice. It was Saturday night and the locals were out in full force in the main square. We followed a bread crumb trail of pro-Palestian graffitti cartoons, until they led us to socialist Narnia: a bar, library, art space and mutual aid club in the courtyard of an old palazzo. I tried to excavate vocabulary from my poli-sci class at Universita di Firenze to eavesdrop a little, but couldn’t get up the courage to join a conversation. We fell back out of the wardrobe enchanted and ended the night chatting at a bustling amaro cantina where patrons spilled out onto the street.

In the morning, we had a fresh breakfast at Ecologia Bistro – a welcome break from the hotel-provided spreads of pastries, breads, and more breads, then piled into the Dover-mobile and picked our way of Palermo’s bustle to cross over the rocky mountains towards the southern coast. On arrival in Agrigento, we explored the Valley of Temples, which is not a valley at all but does indeed have many Greek temples. I was most impressed with the scale of the Temple of Zeus. Though it’s all crumbled, the person-sized fluting on the columns give truth to archaeologists’ contention that it was once seven stories tall.

Templed out and exhausted we grabbed some arancine balls. Note that on this half of the island they are called arancine (one arancina) but in Catania, Cefalu, and Taormina, they are arancini/ arancino. I had been specifically admonished not to get it twisted or I might get my risotto ball Soup Nazi denied. A tee-shirt in Palermo referred to this long-running civil war as “Sicilian Gender Problems.” (I can’t believe we didn’t buy that.)

Just before sunset, we arrived at our agritourismo, Mandrova, a working olive oil farm with a complex of gorgeous stone guest houses set in a dry tropical garden. A sweet german shepherd named Lara spearheaded the welcome party. Her eyes were a little abnormally close together and she couldn’t stop chasing her own shadow. We snuck her the leftover arancine. The chef, one half of the couple who owns the farm, knocked my socks with dinner, starring what I can only describe as chicken bacon. Later on, Annie beat me at chess in a cozy stone living room.

The next day, we explored three different beaches looking for a place to swim. Each was far too windy and rough but they provided a diversity of landscapes for short hikes.

Our second agritourismo was high up in mountains away from the coast, a stone farmhouse tucked into a forest improbably made up primarily of pine trees and cacti. We were very taken with the witchy vibes and despite the chill, Annie bravely jumped in the pool with me.

The main thing to do in the high village of Piazza Armerina is visit the ancient Roman Villa. Because of it’s location away from the sea and because it was probably covered by a landslide, the manor is filled with incredibly ornate, perfectly preserved mosaics. The centerpiece is a long hallway showing the owner’s vast exotic animal trading empire. I was devastated by a section showing how they would capture baby tigers by distracting the mother with a mirrored disc. My favorite was the women working out at the gym, called the bikini girls. Notice the ancient game of peg!

Our next stop was Ragusa Ibla, another pile of houses and churches that seem to barely balance on top of a steep cliff. The town was destroyed by an earthquake then completely rebuilt in Renaissance Baroque-stlye. We took a tour of some gilded age buildings, an elite “conversation circle,” a palazzo, and a Sicilian cart workshop, ate a few good meals, and enjoyed the view of the old city from our balcony.

We passed briefly through Noto, another Baroque town, on our way to our final stop in Sicily, Siracusa.

The old city in Siracusa, Ortigia, is an island labyrinth of Greek ruins, Roman monuments, museums, excellent restaurants, and secret swim spots tucked below the ramparts. We spent several hours at a cocktail bar perched over the lit up columns of the temple of Apollo, charmed by the views, tone-poem menu, and a waiter with the magical ability to make me enjoy gin.

Remembering that we should probably eat dinner too, we found a creative French fusion spot towards the end of the island with a similarly enchanting host and then meandered back through the stone streets cheerfully cooing at every street cat. Okay, we were a little litski, but we can credit Oritigia’s atmosphere for at least half of the intoxication. I highly recommend it.

The next evening, we said goodbye to the Dover-mobile, ZTLs, and arancinx and boarded our flight across the Mediterranean to Casablanca.