southern italy | La Dolce Vita

The last couple of years after Thanksgiving, we have taken a trip with my son, Zach, and his partner, Shannon. Last year we visited Malta (see post from March of 2017) and this year we decided on Sicily. With all of the traveling for work that Zach and Shannon do, they accumulate a lot of rewards points and they have been generous with the sharing of those with us on these trips.

Let me just say that Sicily is absolutely beautiful, the people are very friendly and the food is great.

Palermo

Palermo is the largest and most important city in Sicily. After all, it is where the final scene in Godfather III takes place (see opera house pictures below). Its history goes back to the beginnings of Mediterranean civilization, through the Phoenicians, the Greeks and the Romans. It was the capital of Sicily and spent time as one of the capitals of the Two Sicilies (Naples and Sicily combined). It has been destroyed many times and the old port was completely wrecked by Allied bombing during World War II. We spent several days there exploring this beautiful city as well as many great markets and buildings. Above the town, we went to the village of Montreale with a great panoramic view of the city and the sea beyond.

View from our apartment

Model of the opera house

Inside the opera house

View from the royal booth (remember the Godfather movie?)

Fish market

Vegetable market

Cathedral in Monreale

Inside the cathedral

View of Palermo from Monreale

Valle dei Templi near Agrigento, Sicily

From Palermo we drove south (through the village of Corleone, again for the Godfather fans) to Agrigento to visit the ancient ruins of the Greek city of Akragas in the Valley of the Temples. “Valley” is a misnomer, the ruins sit on a ridge just below the modern city of Agrigento. It is considered the largest archaeological site in the world.

Temple of Concordia

Icarus

Olive tree

Love the horns on these goats

Our great travel companions

My best friend

Sunset at the ruins

Taormina and Mount Etna

We then drove to the east side of the island and got a close up look at the most active volcano in Europe, Mount Etna, and the lovely resort town of Taormina.

Etna was always smoking and when we drove up the side it was a moonscape of pumice. You can take a gondola to the rim of the upper crater and helicopter tours are available. It was cold and late in the day and we did not avail ourselves of either. It was an eerie place to be.

View from Taormina

Etna from Taormina

Roman theater in Taormina

Above taormina

Taormina theater from a distance

Etna

Streets of Taormina at dusk

Etna smoking

Cinder cone on Etna

Gondola to the top of Etna

Bottom of the small crater

Never underestimate the power of a volcano

Siracusa

We took a day drive to Syracuse. It was at one time the second largest city in ancient Greece and rivaled Athens in splendor. It is now a rather subdued small town on the coast with few indications of its former splendor.

The cathedral

Shannon and Zach

You have to love Italian uniforms

And the men in those uniforms acting like everyone else

Fish market

Outdoor vevetable market

One of the few remnants of the Greeks

Messina

Messina is a port city on the northeast corner of Sicily and has a clear view of Calabria on the Italian mainland. It is also home to what they claim to be the largest astrological clock tower in the world. Every hour there are cocks crowing, lions roaring and bells ringing with a parade of saints and animals. It is actually quite a piece of craftsmanship. It displays not only the time but the month and the phase of the moon.

Port of Messina with Calabria in the distance

Port of Messina from the clock tower

The clock tower

The inner workings of the clock

Cefalù

On our way back to Palermo, we stopped through the small port city of Cefalù on the northern coast. It was one of my favorites. It has a great 11th century cathedral, a castle on the hill and great views.

Cefalù

The Cathedral

Inside the cathedral

The castle wall on the hill

Sunset

After a night at the opera in Bari, the last view of our two travel buddies.

What can I say about Matera that will begin to describe the wonder of this place? It is one of the most interesting places I have visited in my life. I will do my best to convey some of the magic this place holds for me.

When you first arrive, it seems like any other Italian city, a mix of new and old, lots of gelato, trinket vendors and street musicians. But it is so much more. I was really unprepared for what I would discover.

It has the distinction of being one of the longest continuously inhabited human settlements in the world. Its history dates back to the paleolithic period. There are still caves that were inhabited millennia ago and subterranean Roman ruins. Then there are the Sassi, ravines leading down to the river where the original settlement was established.

The Sassi are filled every imaginal type of structure. Some dug right into the rock, some built around the rock and some freestanding. When you are in them, it is so easy to imagine that you have traveled back through time. So much so that many films use the location to depict ancient cities. The latest of which was Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of Christ”.

These areas have not been without their difficulties. They had been allowed to deteriorate into squalid slums, where some people had squatted without any access to utilities or sanitation. Finally it was realized that something had to be done and in the 50’s the government stepped in to clean things up. Now it is a place with restaurants, hotels and B&Bs: all nestled into these ancient structures.

We took our first trip with our same group of friends (sans the two teenagers) with whom we went to Alberobello. Holly and I liked it so well that we took train there to see more. We have barely scratched the surface of what is to be seen among the layers of human history to be found there and will probably go back so we can stay for a day or two.

When we arrived, we strolled around the city, saw the entrance to the subterranean roman ruins and then one of the many overlooks to the first of the Sassi. It was breathtaking. As we descended into this ancient tangle of streets and buildings, it finally dawned on me how special of a place this is. We came back up for a wonderful lunch and like many meals in Italy, it was not fast food. When we came out of the restaurant it was getting late and in December that means that it will get dark soon. Our Italian friends started hurrying us along so we could see the rest of the city. The first Sassi had been remarkable in its antiquity and charm and so I was surprised when Maurizio said we needed to hurry as we wanted to see the “old” part of the city before nightfall. Are you kidding me? Well, he wasn’t. We descended from the plaza outside of the 11th century cathedral (was that a humble brag?) into the next warren of streets, buildings and caves. We finally arrived at another plaza that overlooked the river along whose banks the original inhabitants settled, but we had no time to descend to it or ascend to the caves we could see on the other side. Some of the caves are natural and were inhabited in the Paleolithic era and some were dug of the rock by early Christians and others as the centuries have passed.

On our return rip, Holly and I did have time to descend to the river, but did not have the time to explore the other side. That will need to wait for another time.

The cast of characters.