Sunday, November 27, 2005

TERME ACQUA PIA

Yesterday we again experienced strong sirocco winds that felt almost gale force. But at least we did not have the snow that much of northern Italy had. So we took a long drive in the countryside and rediscovered one of the ancient hot water springs in Sicily. Terme Acqua Pia is nestled in an isolated part of the Belice Valley that is hard to get to, with a secondary road that spirals down into the valley. This was a road we took three years ago with my dad and Uncle Charlie and it features corners with not very substantial guard rails that could hurtle you down to the bottom of the valley very quickly. It is between the cities of Partanna and Montevago.
The terme is by far the most luxurious of the hot water swimming places we have been to, even though the one in Sciacca could be so much better. Poor management and constant union troubles ruin the Sciacca pool, and it is usually filthy. But Terme Acqua Pia has one main difference from the termes in Sciacca and Terme Gorga near Calatafimi-it has no sulphur water smell! It was also pretty expensive-15 euro apiece for the day. And it was all outside with no indoor facilities out of the wind for day-trippers like us.
The pool was huge and the falls (holes in the rock with a hot tub where you pushed the button to make them go but and in the picture they are off) were delightful. The water was just the right temperature, although the hot tub could have been a bit warmer. The whole place was well tended even in those gale winds, but there were few other people and nothing much was open in this off-season. There was a center for video games, fast food and a sit down restaurants, playgrounds for the kids, nice plantings with two kinds of papyrus, and picnic areas all over, enough for hundreds of people. We know bus trips come here often, so that must be why there are so many of these types of facilities. They also offer beauty and health spa weekends, and there is a kind of nice hotel nearby in which people can stay for these weekends.
But later as I walked around to take pictures, I found where at least some of the guests were staying. There is a nice grove of orange trees way in the back, and we came across several travel trailers parked there. Think how nice it would be to get up in the morning and go out and pick a fresh orange or two for breakfast!
We tried to take a picture of the spa from the opposite hillside, but it is on a bend in the river and completely covered by trees. The hotel is a pretty site nestled in the hollow nearby (see picture). We found an inexpensive and good restaurant in Castelvertrano for lunch and enjoyed a mushroom/cream red sauce pasta and a shrimp and spinach risotto. We came home by way of the big shopping centers near the parkway. There was not much great shopping, but we picked up a cheap fake oriental to warm our feet in the living room these long chilly winter nights (Limoncello the canary is hopping around in the picture. He couldn’t figure out how to get up onto the new rug and “initiate” it). The clouds on the way home showed that the high winds had risen to cloud level and they were a sight to behold as they pinked up in the sunset.

Thursday, November 24, 2005

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

And I am thankful for so much but will not celebrate with turkey and pumpkin pie here in Sicily.
Well, with ONE turkey, whose bridge fell out again...from both of us,
HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Monday, November 21, 2005

VISIT TO A FRANTOIA

VISIT TO A FRANTOIA
11/21/05
Yesterday was the day of “feste di olio di oliva nuovo.” That meant that the area olive oil making businesses (frantoia) were open for tasting and celebration. Steve heard about it and had gone last year, so this year he took me along on a beautiful but chilly Sunday morning. I read that these are part of the government sponsored events by the agricultural department and/or tourism, and they are usually pretty lavish.
When we drove up we saw a large modern building and when we entered from the sunlight, we tried to make sense of all of the things going on there. There was a lot of heavy machinery and many huge vats in the back. There were students bustling around, engaged in various activities, booths and signs and about a hundred people in all mostly standing around chatting, eating and drinking, and looking around.
First we headed to the tumor association booth, and for 10 euro, we got a poinsettia, a baseball cap, a key chain, and a good feeling that we had helped (plus a donation receipt). Then we chatted with the kids at the local ag and tech high school who specialized in learning how to make wine and beer. Wow! We explained that there was NOTHING like that in the states. We tasted their grillo grape white, and it was pretty good.
Meanwhile, the food was being set out on tables and it looked pretty tempting. We got to taste several kinds of pate and brushetta on tasty fresh bread rounds and a bread with oil, fresh anchovy, and orange that was really delightful. When everything is fresh and in season, you know at least each components will be good, and despite our doubts, this was a really nice combo. The wine was there for the asking too.
Then we watched the student artists concentrating on sketching and painting, working amidst all of the mayhem. A teacher-type person was close by observing. I don’t know what they were supposed to be drawing/painting, but there was a group working on decorating plates-that would be the ceramic artists students. There was a narrated slide show showing olive oil production featuring an olive as the main cartoon character.
Finally, we approached the young ladies that had small bottles of new oil on a table and asked how much they were. They assured us that the bottles were free, but then someone came up and said I had to fill in a survey in order to take one. So I did and we took our bottle, our flower, our full tummies, and our cap and walked out into the Sunday sunny morning. Steve smiled with his gapped teeth and looked like a local. That fallen bridge gets cemented back on Monday AM.
Glad you are home from the hospital, ma-feel better!

Thursday, November 17, 2005

STORMY WEATHER

This is dedicated to ma, and come on, get out of the hospital soon, and Jon, Happy 26th birthday tomorrow!

We had a rough day today. I did not sleep well anyway because of the thunder and lightening that lit up the night from about 4:00 AM on. Steve got up to unplug the computer and I pulled the plug out of the TV/stereo/DVD and tried to turn over. But a few late weather mosquitoes must have entered our bedroom for shelter and made a feast out of me! I was bitten all over my arms and woke when I did drift off because I had to scratch those bumps and bites. Finally at 5:30 I got up and went on line to IM my daughter and check on mail about my mother. But little did I know that the rest of the world was doing other weird things too. When I looked outside at the dawn, I saw half of a dramatically dark sky that periodically lit up with distant lightening, and half normal sunrise.
After our first winter breakfast of oatmeal and brown sugar, we headed into town to get a haircut for me that was long overdue, and to get batteries for both of watches that had stopped about the same time. The roads were strewn with branches and mud, and the going was slow. Then we saw this foam-like substance and could not figure out what it was. It was not till we finished our errands that I figured out it was not foam-it was ice! Or more precisely, large granules of hail that did not melt in shady spots. So we stopped and took a picture, even though we had seen hail here many times before. But we have never seen an accumulation that lasted under sun bright enough to dry all of the laundry that we hung on the porch. Joe called from across town and said that the hail damaged the hibiscus he grows so well, but we had no plant damage at all, so it was definitely a spotty occurrence.
We stopped to check on the mudslide/erosion situation in the fields across from our house that have been featured in previous reports. There is starting to be a bit erosion in the places where the fire burned the biggest spot, and the track of the machinery on the condo hillside that was right over the red-roofed house is starting to be obliterated totally. And the winter rains have just begun!

Sunday, November 13, 2005

BEAUTIFUL WEATHER FOR OIL

The siroccos started in the middle of the night, and it is not such a good day for any of us. We had been getting up with the sun and going to bed to watch TV with the early dark, and we have had such gorgeous weather since we returned that a day inside with wind, rain, and low temperatures outside makes us really feel it. Even the bird has enjoyed the sun daily, and keys his singing and frolicking to the outdoor activity of calling to the other birds in the area. He got spoiled with Paolo and Ignatzia while we were in Paris, looking for cookies and greens daily in his cage, and also a new treat. He experienced a bath for the first time when Paolo rigged one up for him. Now he wants us to give him one daily because Limoncello enjoys it so!
On Friday we drove in the convertible to the tiny town of Chiusa Sclafani to check out a lead about some lemon-flavoured olive oil that so many of our guests have loved. This “olio di oliva aromatizzato” has been hard to find outside of the more expensive shops and tasting rooms. And these olive oils are special because the olives have the pitts taken out-they are "denutted." So we made the trip to see if we could find the frantoia (olive press) and also to see the views. We had been there once before and remembered that it was a scenic town with a windy road that showed views of the town up on a cliff almost the whole way.
And that was exactly what we found-a gorgeous trip on a road with a lot of hairpin curves that were not too good for my stomach. The green of the valleys was incredible, and reminded me of shots I had seen of Ireland. We found the scenic frantoia and wandered around taking pictures inside, and then outside watched a farmer plow straight down a steep hill with a tractor on tank tracks, not wheels, that could not plow up the hill. It had to actually climb up the hill away from the prepared rows and only plow down, that was how steep the hill was. We spent time chatting with a workman and watching him fill our order until the owner came. And then the gruelling part began.
Once the owner heard what we wanted, he proceeded to clean off the bottles of oil that we had watched the workman fill and cap by using a high powered hair dryer. Then one by one, for 12 bottles, he stuck on 6 stickers per bottle, yes, one at a time, always fumbling around looking for new stickers and answering phone calls. It was maddening to see him repeat the process, for he would be almost done and then go out somewhere and bring back an envelope with more stickers and start the process all over again. My patience for that sort of thing was at the breaking point before he was even half way done!
We had planned to follow the same scenic road to go to Corleone for lunch, but because of the delay of the bottle-sticker man, some nasty afternoon interior rain clouds prevented us from continuing, and so instead we hurried home to the calm skies of our coast. Yesterday we drove over to Castelvertrano to buy a popcorn popper with Brigette and Joe and had lunch at their house. And now we are here inside reading papers for a relaxing Sunday in the rain.

Thursday, November 10, 2005

PARIS 3

Here are the rest of the selected group. Most of these are of Notre Dame or on the Seine, and the Musee D'Orsay

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

PARIS RIOTS AND WEATHER

The rest of the pictures of Paris show odd shots of us and our rambles through the museums, sights and monuments of Paris. There is something about the light there on the marble that makes you understand why those buildings were labored over and constructed in the first place. I must admit that I have never seen Notre Dame not covered in scaffolding and it is incredibly gorgeous in autumn light. I loved the small garden outside of our window and the general French sense of style, although the Galleries Lafayette (Christmas tree and outside decorations) were again about as over-the-top as you can get.
I read that the “Paris” riots have expanded to other parts of the country and I do wonder about the outcomes for the tourist trade there. It seems strange that second generation kids are feeling compelled to trash their own neighborhoods for lack of employment, but then again, the inner city US problems of our youth were caused by the same pressures. Anyway, it was all out in the poor suburbs when we were there so we really saw nothing but police cars and vans with sirens going through the middle of town. There seemed to be very little problem with unemployed groups of people hanging out, but we did see our usual share of homeless people on the streets, including our very own doorway bum.
The weather in Paris in November chills right up, an average of 10 C high (50 F), 5 C low (40 F), but was not too bad while we were there. There were clouds, rain, wind and sun, but the thing that strikes me about Paris weather is how low the sky seems. Because we are used to gazing out at the sea and seeing both near and distant mountains here, the confines of the city were almost claustrophobic for me. Plus all the elevators, lines, and crowds that are normal in a city where everyone has to wait to get their needs filled. Nothing seems simple about fulfilling simple needs, from bathrooms to transportation and as for food, every meal is from products that have been brought into the city to service the masses. And it is a continuation of the process that has been going on for thousands of years in this ancient center of civilization. I just finished a book about the last days of the Roman Empire, and it mentions Paris’s role in servicing travellers since the second century AD. A visit to the remains of the Roman baths in the Museum of the Middle Ages also brought all of that to mind.
That way of thinking about food is so different from our everyday life here in Sicily. I came home to my last tomatoes and peppers and all of the herbs and the lettuce and celery in full growth. I will start the carrots, peas, and green beans in the greenhouse this week as soon as I am sure we will get some more rain.
And of course our weather is so balmy in November. I looked on my clothes rack and noticed my bathing suit and cover up and remembered that we had been swimming up to the time that we left here. But the angle of the sun and the length of daylight changes of course. Nights here have become chilly, so I am getting out the comforters and washing them this morning. By the light in the kitchen in the morning I know that the sun now rises at a lower angle and it’s time to take off the small curtain that has to be there to make cooking on summer mornings bearable without the sun directly shining into your eyes.

Tuesday, November 08, 2005

PARIS IN A DAY

Well, it was 5 days, but the song kept coming back to me as we tried to do as much as we possibly could do in the time we had alloted to us. We have been to Paris at least 5 other times before that we can count, but it is not like you can do it all in even that amount of time. This time we were with my brother Jack’s son Matt and his girlfriend Erin. Matt is an architect in Buffalo and Erin a lawyer in Rochester. And they had not ever been to Paris, so we tried to see it from as many other ways as we could. We had never been to the top of the Eiffel Tower, nor taken a double decker tour nor gone to the museum of the Middle Ages before. We had not spent much time at Place des Vosges nor wandered the Marais district other than the Picasso museum and the Blvd des Franc Bourgeois nor seen the many views behind Notre Dame as we headed home with the sun setting and magic picture taking time. And we did all of these things because of these kids. What a great experience!
Our rented garden apartment in the Marais left a bit to be desired, but the location was the best ever. It was advertised as two full bedrooms and two full baths. How can you have a full bath without a toilet? Or a full bath when you cannot stand in the shower? Or a full bedroom when the roof would be fitting for a midget, but not for normal sized people? Still, it was so handy to the wine shops, supermarket, and bakeries, as well as having a Metro stop across the street and we DID have our own resident doorman, but he was usually drunk and slumped over the grating.
I took almost 600 pictures! But that is because of those darn bus tours…you never seem to get just the right view and so keep clicking away at it. And then there are all the heads and hands in the way because of other photographers. I am glad I have an editing program that I can use because many of the shots needed to be “straightened” up a bit. I noticed that things that we had looked at when walking by, even those we saw several times, looked so different from the top of an open bus. But at least walking by you see a view and can pose the camera before the view takes off.
And walk we did. When we arrived, I had a tough time getting used to the chilly weather and had just had a flu shot, so I did not feel very energetic. But by the time we hobbled off of the plane last night at 11 PM, I had bruised the sole of my foot from so much walking! It is either that or a Planter’s wart, which I have not had since my 20’s. I hope it was a bruise. We shall see.
So here are some shots of the first day or so from the open tour bus. The shots from the Eiffel tower and Arc di Triomphe alone could have totalled in the hundreds, but this is a select grouping. More tomorrow.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005

MISTAKE 2

Yes, it was the house below acting on an old agreement with another manager, to cross our land to stabilize the hillside. But nothing was ever said about taking off half the hillside! A spontaneous "meeting of the minds" took place yesterday on the beach road while we were on our way home. We got to hear some of the explanation, which appeared lame enough to me.
The work is supposed to be stopped because of the lawsuit we are filing and the lawsuit will be dropped once the people doing the work in the "abusive" house below stabilize our hillside, repair our steps, and our drainage sytem. So stay tuned to the final chapters.