Thursday, February 24, 2005

THE RIBERA HOLOCAUST MUSEUM, LUCCA SICULA

It was clear and windy today, just right for a trip to Ribera market, and maybe to find out what has happened to our old friends Giusi and Claudio, or at least to talk to their families. Also, we had read a lot about a Holocaust survivor that had erected a memorial in a public space in Ribera, so we thought we might find that today.
The market was crazy as ever, but we walked through it and enjoyed the usual sights and sounds. I like to look at the oriental rugs in this particular market because there is a good variety and they seem to be of decent quality. I miss a nice thick rug in the living room, and someday will get one. Anyway, we left the market and made our way to Claudio’s parents’ house and as usual, found only the dog at home. But we left a note and went on to Giusi and Claudio’s apartment. There I spoke to neighbors who said they would leave a message for them. So for everyone who met those two, stay tuned! We went on to the museum, and found the owner’s son, who hurried off to get his dad to open it up for us. It had been officially dedicated the week before in a ceremony, but was probably only open now by appointment.
Calogero Sparacino was an Italian airman third class captured in Albania during the war. Instead of being taken to a German prisoner of war camp for military, he was sent to Nordhausen, in a location either near or part of Buchenwald (Camp “Dora”), where there was a secret tunnel where missiles to bombard England were built. He kept a diary of his life there and wrote a book based on his experiences that has been valuable in understanding what happened at Buchenwald. When he came back, he determined to put his memories to work, so built a model of the camp and began a life of collecting remnants and speaking about what happened to him and the people he got to know. Now he is a slight, frail, white haired man of 85, easily moved to tears. He asked us our interest in this matter, and listened carefully, and told us incidents and details that made him cry often. He inscribed the copy of his book that we bought and was eager to show us all of his bitter memories on the walls of his museum. But it was hard for us to see him so moved (I kept tearing up too) and we politely declined seeing the movie that had been made of his efforts.
We said our good-byes and I felt like I had escaped after that! We decided to take a ride toward Burgio, known for its giant wall murals in the beautiful valley we had seen before outside of Ribera, and so set off looking for lunch. We ended up in a small town called Lucca Sicula, also known for murals, and found a diner car for lunch! But alas, no hamburgers, just a wonderful spaghetti with “ragu,” the local name for a meat and pea tomato sauce. Delicious! We came home on a different route, stopping to take pictures of fields and old ruins, and admiring the orange and lemon crop ripe in the fields and the almond trees in bloom alongside the ride.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

CALTABELLOTTA AND M.A.T.E.S.

A VISIT FROM EMIILIO-Our neighbor Emilio knocked at the door Sunday morning, just as Steve came home with the warm bread from the bakery that we have for Sunday breakfast. He wanted to know if we wanted to go up to Caltabellotta and eat with the gang from the parties at his house next to the tennis court that I have described elsewhere. We wondered about the snow up there, and he said that there was snow, but not on the roads. So we said yes, and got dressed for the cold.
It was Paola and Angelo, Mariarosa and Emilio, Lillo and Mariela and their daughter Mariangela, the fashion model. When we got there, another couple and their son joined us, Gilda and another Lillo and their son Enzo. We had met or seen all of these people all summer long, and so it was a jolly gathering at a truly incredible place

THE MATES RESTAURANT is a hole-in-the-wall set into an alley off a street in Caltabellotta. It’s initials indicate that it is a museum of ancient technologies of olive oil pressing. And when we entered, we could not believe the walls! There was a back room with a curved high ceiling, similar to the ones we have seen in the “baglia” or cantinas where wine is produced. I think they had to be shaped this way to drive horses in or to back the wagons into the workspace, but that is only a guess. The walls were rough but freshly painted to accentuate the holes and rough spots. There were implements hung everywhere, an immaculate floor, and attractive tables set for many people. We were a big group normally, but the next table held about double our amount, with seven little kids that ran and scampered all over throughout the meal. The bathroom was a big laugh too-it was outside the restaurant, down the street and two the left. A door opened to two very clean bathrooms, which were as cold as any I have ever been in. Remember it had been snowing up there, and snow was still hanging around. According to the thermometer in Emilio’s car, it was 3° C!

THE MENU was seasonal, but essentially the same, only changing to whatever was freshest and most plentiful at the time of year. It consisted of preserved goods also, many of which were for sale in a corner. For appetizers, we started with cheeses and homemade sausages, olives, caponata, bread, fresh ricotta cheese, pancetta, sun dried tomatoes preserved in oil, and a rosé wine that was remarkably light but flavorful. All were supposedly grown and made in Caltabellotta. Then there was a frittata, and as usual, I made the Sicilians laugh by asking what vegetable it was, and they answered, “verdure” or “greens,” and I asked in Italian, “But what kind of greens?” No one ever knows what kind of greens they are, but they sure know how to pick them out in the wild. I see people all of the time walking along roadways with plastic bags and knives.
The pasta course consisted of two choices, a medium-sized shell coated with a green ricotta cheese (again, the greens blended for the sauce were unidentifiable), and a fettuccini with eggplant and a little meat in a tomato sugu. For the meat course, there was a wonderful fresh pork roast, sausage, and lamb ribs. For dessert, there was an Arabic combination which I never remember the name of, but it had couscous, cinnamon, almond, dried fruit, and orange in a thick cream sauce served on little white paper cups, and then fruits such as citron, grapefruit, oranges, and mandarins. The coffee espresso came next, and last, freshly made cannole with fresh ricotta was the fitting grand ending to the meal.
We were given a book about the entire history of olives, written by Gilda’s brother who is an archaeologist who lives in Barcelona, Spain. In it were pictures of the olive presses that are pictured at the restaurant. Guess what the whole thing cost? $26 euro per person!

Monday, February 21, 2005

32 BOATS AND WEATHER

Saturday morning we woke to a fleet of boats outside of our door. The weather had been unsettled, rainy and chilly with bursts of glorious sun in between. Snow was up on the mountains, and Caltabellotta looked absolutely grim with a cap of snow and constant clouds. But as the weather brightened, we took walks for pictures, and as we went into town , we noticed birds off of the beach sunning their wings between showers.

Saturday, February 12, 2005

News from Sicily-FRANA, SAGRA DI MANDORLE, SATIRO DANZANTE

Yesterday we took a break from cleaning and unpacking and went out in the beautiful sunny weather to ride to Agrigento about 75 miles away for a look at the almond trees next to the Greek temples there. It was a gorgeous day and the festival celebrating the blossoming of the trees, the Sagra di Mandorle, with its accompanying world folk dance festival, was just about over. Hundreds of dancers from all over the world had come and danced and pledged friendship with the folks of Agrigento in the Valley of the Temples. We have only seen it on TV because the weather has almost always been rainy and windy for these poor dancers, and besides, the TV coverage is usually excellent. The blossoms were not as prolific as other years, or else lots of people helped themselves to branches. But it was still a very charming sight. Then for pranzo, our favourite fish restaurant, Il Molo, was as good as ever to its promise of 10 antipasti and 3 pasta/rice dishes, plus water, bread and wine for one low price. Yum!
On the way out, we saw close up the worsening of the damage that had been done to our main road while we were gone. Cold and rains had made the “frana,” the collapse of Contrada San Marco, much worse. At the point of the frana, the road goes down a hill and around a curve, and it is a very picturesque spot. Since a traffic light had been installed so that there is only one way traffic, I got to get up close and take pictures. The funny thing about this traffic light is that there are very few of them in this town of almost 50,000 people, and this must be the only spare. We think this because we saw a TV article about the main traffic light on Via Cappuccino being off, again because of water damage to the wiring, and a delay of months before the $10,000 euro repair can be made-there just is no money in the town budget for it. In the meantime, the TV reporter assured viewers that the problem would solve itself once things warmed and dried up.
Also making news here is the flap over the transfer of the famous “Satiro Danzante,” the incredible bronze torso depicting a dancing figure from ancient times, brought up from the waters of the Sicilian channel near here that I wrote about earlier last September. It was housed in its own museum and was a figure of great pride for the people of Mazara Del Vallo after they had finally gotten it back (after five years!) from the archaeologists and restorers last summer. Well, an invitation arrived on the mainland and it was decided by the powers that be that it would make a great figure to be the main attraction of Expo 2005 in Japan this year. So before it was in its new home for even a year, off it went again. But not without demonstrations, protests, and finally, a failed physical confrontation between the truck that was carrying it out of town and the protesters to the action. Some of the protesters were town and provincial councilmen, and they were among the half dozen injured, along with some of the press. It seems that the building of a new distillery near the museum and the lack of Sicilian representation with the delegation to Japan were also part of the protest. In any case, this action seems to takes civic pride to an extreme quite unknown in the US.

Thursday, February 10, 2005

CHARTRES (and Australia)

A highlight of our trip was a visit to the small town of Chartres, famous for its huge medieval cathedral with the gorgeous stained glass windows, gargoyles, stone carvings, and graceful spires. We decided against going to Versailles because we both thought the over-the-top opulence was not too interesting and besides, I love stained glass. Also the trip to Chartres was longer and we would see more of the countryside. The trip was also highly recommended by Sue and Jo, our two tour directors extraordinaire, as well as the Fodor’s Guide we were using. Our time share reception desk was not very helpful with any details, so we just went to Montparnasse station and caught the first train out.
We met a family of Australians on the train, a mother and father who were teachers, and 2 daughters who were college and high school students. They had rented an apartment in the Montmarte on the internet, and were spending part of their summer vacation away from the heat of Brisbane. She was an art teacher, he a scientist, but he enjoyed telling us about the political nature of life in Australia. Later we would meet in the Cathedral and we shared the name of the restaurant where we had brunch, large baked potatoes smothered in a mushroom cheese sauce. They went there for dinner and found the owners were transplanted Australians themselves! We also ended up taking the same train back as them. So much for intensive sight seeing. But I did get to see the southern suburbs of Paris, which were quite lovely, with their views of the Eiffel Tower and mix of new and old types of housing. Further on there were small towns and farms, but the extensive wheat fields that I had read about were only beginning to green up. It was all quite picturesque, and when we got to Versailles station, I was glad we had not planned to go to that dingy looking town (I’m sure the palace is quite stunning, though).
And you can see the Chartres cathedral from the train station! The town itself had a lot of charm, and once they finish the “big dig” in the middle of town, I am sure it will be much more charming. We wondered about it, and on the way out, noticed a series of signs and boards outlining the archaeological finds in the middle of town that had necessitated the diggings. Try to put in a road in a popular spot, and you’ll find bones from centuries ago, I guess.
Anyway, Chartres cathedral was most impressive and the scope of the statues and stain glass is just huge, making you feel like just a small speck in the overall scheme of things. The “choir screen”, the interior sculpture walls, is so intricate that it is hard to focus on one thing. But once you do, you notice heads missing and some puzzling types of destruction. I mentioned it to Chris, the art teacher from Brisbane, and she thought that in the anti-Catholic era (read Tracy Chevalier’s Virgin Blue), they intended to but procrastinated tearing the place down, and in the meanwhile, people have felt free through the ages to take off an occasional head for a souvenir from the sculptures there-after all, there are so many!
One more thing is the maze that is a theme on the outside and the inside of the church. Walking the maze was what the pilgrims did (not a form of entertainment as I thought originally), full of symbolism, found in and around many churches and public structures of the time. Go figure! We tried not to walk in too many circles and ended up having a grand time.

PARIS 2005

The Eiffel Tower. The Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre, Musee d’Orsay, The Picasso Museum. Place Vogues, L’Opera, Chartes, Notre Dame. Phew! What a trip. This time, because we had such a long time, we did a lot more and we found time to hit the wonderful January sales almost everyday. But by hitting the sales, you also get some of the best views of Paris, from some of the most beautiful stores in the world. We bought tons of CDs, books, kitchen stuff, shirts for Steve, a fake fur for me.
With so much time, we got to do lots of silly things too. We ate a lot of lunches out and then, exhausted from the long day of walking, we had sandwiches or similar fare in the room and watched foreign films. A German one without words and an Icelandic one were my favorites. We saw The Aviator in English with French subtitles. We decided to see for ourselves some of the covered passageways or arcades that we had read about, that became the model for shopping malls in the US. Although shabby now, they have quite a history to them. We watched hockey and ice skating at Montparnasse station and the Hotel D'Ville. We walked through the Pere Lachaise cemetery and picked out Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt, Gertrude Stein. We got to an evening at a Jazz Club, heard some fine organ/boy’s choir music in a local cathedral, and got to watch the inner goings on of an underwear convention held a few blocks from our time share. More later!