lemon trees

#13 Arrivederchi Italy – We’re Alberta Bound

We are in the final day of our 30 days in Italy and are relaxing poolside rather than walking 10,000 steps.

The southern sun has warmed. We’ve driven for miles and miles around villages and farmland, walked through steep hillside towns climbing to their centres  and grandiose cathedrals.

Strolled through gardens and orchards with even M, a non-gardener, trying to help me identify sweetly scented blossoms. 

  And we’ve dined morning, noon and late at night.  (A 7:30 dinner reservation is early, most restaurants don’t get guests until 9 pm.) We even discovered what Italians do when all the shops close from 12:30 til 4:30 – they go home and cook big meals and rest, before restarting their work day late afternoon. 

    Though we planned this day to be chill  before our return to Alberta’s late spring we don’t sit still. We wander through a museum created from a restoration of La Posta Vecchia, a grand home first built on a then already ancient site in 1640! Destroyed in a fire in 1919 it evidently sat ignored until purchased and restored by the famous magnate J. Paul Getty in 1960 with the guidance of the archaeological societies of Etruria. But then, presto(!) – artifacts of all kinds, including finely crafted mosaic floors were discovered under the basement dating to the … hang on … first and second century AD!!

Trying to get our heads around that we took a beach walk along the shores of the Mediterranean. I had to pause and consider the history of what we’d just seen – trying to feel the spirits from 2000 years ago!

It makes me want to cry and be happy at the same time. Being close to works of art so ancient makes me think we have to get the most out of our time here on earth, create art,  put down our iPhones, lol, love the ones we’re with,  and be present for each other. It’s what we have.

As we watched the fishermen  on the rocky ledge I couldn’t stop considering how I might make life at home  more Italian.

I’ve decided I need to build a stone wall, install huge (maybe ancient – 1st century) terracotta planters, shine a light up my apple tree, plant a lemon tree (ha!), drink all my future cappuccinos from a pretty pink china cup, eat more bread and gelato and somehow be thin, wear pungent floral perfume and gaze at it all through popular crazy-huge black rimmed glasses. Prego. Prego. We’re soon to be Alberta bound. 

#7 – Oops! Back to Sicily – The Post About Dining!

M and I are on a long holiday to see how much we can eat! … I mean to celebrate his retirement. We’re in the boot of Italy but so much bread, olives, pasta, sausage, calamari, pizza and gelato has gone to my head and I’ve left out this post penned in Sicily.

Back on Sicily we left the Baroque city of Noto, and traveled toward Catalina pausing in Syracuse, the birthplace of Archimedes and home of Pythagoras and Plato, to walk the seawall above the Ionian Sea  and lunch at an outdoor cafe. Beside us a chic and thin Sicilian couple ordered a big plate of crispy  calamari, just as we did. Full of the fat rings of fried squid, we were ready to pay and continue exploring but noted that the Sicilians were  now indulging in big plates of tomatoe and olive covered rigatoni, and you bet they’d finish with gelato and/or cannoli. Observing so many Sicilians dine that excessively I was desperate to know the secret of binging like the bourgeoisie and still mirroring skinny models. Behind us an American told his server the portion was too large to finish. The waiter declared rather emphatically, “This is Sicily. We only have big portions. Enjoy it.”

When M and I weren’t discussing how locals packed away so much fine Italian grub and remained fit, we were back to being blown away by their driving. They flew past us on rough stone roads, with garden walls boxing us in, maneuvering the blind corners with moterbikes overtaking us all. M exclaimed and I gasped and gripped the door handle, convinced the Sicilian drivers had some sixth sense combined with a strong faith in the afterlife. 

Drivers and diners aside,  what I’d like to bottle and bring home is the the delightful transcendent scent that filled the air when we arrived at the country inn we were booked into, situated in an orchard of lemon and orange trees. The afternoon that we’d heard there was a spring snow storm back home in Canada M and I competed for the best lemon tree photograph. I got into bed that night intoxicated not by wine or eperol, but that sweet aroma of lemon blossoms.

#6 Greetings Cheek to Cheek

On a sunny afternoon M and I wander the Baroque city of Noto single file, as the sidewalks are comparable in size to Canadian curbs. A crosswalk is barely a suggestion. Ie. drivers might consider slowing here, but hey, probably not. I lag behind M, staring at the array of doors that personalize the look-alike  storied townhouses constructed hundreds (and hundreds) of years ago, remembering to glance up, so as not to miss the boxes of geraniums, the ancient swirly cornices, and ok this seems silly, but even the crisp laundry flapping in the Sicilian breeze looks artistic, rather than messy to my foreigner’s eye.

We pass containers planted with small wonderfully cheery lemon trees. I’m a sucker for the popular sunshiny lemon-printed fabric and worry about how many pretty tablecloths,  runners, and cloth shopping bags I’ll go home with? Thank goodness the shops close from noon to four preventing me from purchasing a pile of them. 

The highlight is strolling Noto at night with the shop doors open, and locals calling out greetings to each other, Salve! Buona Sera! When they meet, they touch each other cheek to cheek. So much energy and enthusiasm but M and I wonder what do they do during those four hours in the afternoon? 

  What we don’t question and want to emulate back home, is the Italian talent for outdoor lighting. It’s another world after dusk, eating our pistachio and stracciatella gelato under the illumination of the ground and twinkling accent lights brightening  churches and historic walkways.

From the grand steps of the Cattedrale di San Nicolo – I wonder, can I light up my Canadian poplar tree and lilac bushes to shimmer from the bottom up? Prego, I’m going to try. 

# 5 We Dare To Drive in Sicily!

Driving! Mama mia! After three days in Palermo we rented a car to drive through the middle of Sicily from the north coast to the south coast. First nerve racking task – leaving Palermo. The roads have lanes but no lines. Motorcycles, and there are plenty of them, seem to be exempt  from all rules of the road, and where in Canada other vehicle drivers might catch your eye with a look, or even a nod, here it seems like the attitude  is to avoid indicating intent, rather it’s “I’m just going where I’m going. You watch out!” 

Mama Mía!

Finally we’re on the open (skinny) road winding through the Sicilian hills. Unlike on a trip through the Canadian Rockies, we rarely lose sight of farms, villas and orchards. Amongst the greenery, the houses in the fairytale hillsides are exclusively shades of yellow or gold. And the magnificent vistas! – layers of hills, farm land, and then the Ionian Sea.

  Looking for a pizzeria in the city of Caltagirone, we found the streets quiet and shuttered.  Settling for a Italian McDonalds (no Big Macs or Quarter Pounders) we learned that Monday is the only day of the week that Caltagirone’s businesses ‘take a rest’. 

Back on the highway to Noto, our next destination , the landscape levels somewhat to an impressive variety of vegetation: palm and cypress trees, whole groves of prickly pear cacti, orchards of olive and lemon trees. M got used to me gasping at each hairpin turn, with drivers passing us to head straight for oncoming traffic, like why wouldn’t they? 

    For a distance we followed a giant semi and worried what impatient Italian might try to pass us both. On a hairpin turn it wasn’t a vehicle slowing traffic but rather  a horse and buggy. Mama Mía! 

Semi and horses

At last we were inside Noto,  where I thought we’d be stuck to this day! The cobblestone roads, shrunk in width as we drove. Back at home we might call them sidewalks. The strident voice of Google maps, demanded we turn left in between two ancient buildings a few feet apart. Seriously!? Behind us three drivers were waiting for us to get on with it. The walls of the buildings on each side of our rented KIA’s supposed path were scrapped with paint from non-Italian drivers who’d passed this way before. 

Seriously?

M now insists it wasn’t so big a deal. (What?!) My solution,  cried out between bad language, was to just let the Italian guy in the car behind us take the wheel in our car and get us out of the jam. M is far too much of a red blooded male to have considered that – and he persevered, manoeuvring by inches until our car could move forward. With adrenaline still rushing through my Canadian veins we made it through Noto to where the Google maps lady said, ‘Your destination is on the right.’ And Prego! A giant double door opened to a courtyard with parking for our hotel. Be still my heart. It was time for an afternoon cappuccino and an Aperol Spritz!