To Calabria and Back
We had not seen our friend, Franco, in Marzi, Calabria in about 5 years. Our last trip to the Mediterranean we went to Malta for our daughter's graduation and we had time to only get to Sciacca, Sicily. It takes a full day or more to drive to Messina, catch a ferry, and drive to the mountain village of Marzi. This trip we went to see Katherine and Toto at Home from Home B&B in Bolognetta, about 25 km southeast of Palermo and then drove to Calabria for a couple nights to see Franco Tucci and his family.
We met Franco's brother, Alphonso, in Seattle while our house on Queen Anne was being remodeled. Franco and Alphonso immigrated about 1955. Franco and his wife Franca had two children, Nunzio and Maria, in the States but returned to Italy around 1966 and Franco took over the family farm, eventually opening an agritourismo, La Cisterna. Cathy and I took our first visit to Italy in 2003 and stayed at La Cisterna. We met Franco and his family, Nunzio, Maria, Paola and Emmanella and the one grandchild, Arianna. Over the next years we returned several times, even spending our 25th anniversary with them. They've become like our 2nd family, only in Italy.
We first stayed with Katherine and Salvatore (Toto) Cruella, who run Home from Home, on one of our successive trips when we went to Sicily in 2005. Katherine and Toto are one of about 3 places in Sicily that have permits to raise the endangered Sicilian tortoise. Today they have 40 of them. Staying with Katherine is like staying with a favorite aunt. She used to run hotels in England before meeting Toto, moving to Sicily and eventually marrying him. Their B&B is a great place to stay and they have a dedicated clientele. You have to be in touch with them early or be lucky to get a room. She spoils you to the extreme and we try to see them when we're here. This winter we fear that we won't have time to get back while Rachel's here because of her limited vacation time. We know that she and Toto are disappointed that they won't get to see her, but there will be future visits. Maybe she can arrange to come on her own with a friend to spend a few days.
That's the year we also first stayed with Salvatore (Toto, again) Maniscalco and his wife Pascale Dodin, at their vacation apartments, Verditecnica, in Sciacca where we are spending the majority of this 3 month trip.
We overnighted with Katherine and Toto and spent several hours of catching up on our recent pasts. It'd been 5 years after all. That evening we took Toto to dinner. We used his suggestion to eat at Bottega Siciliana. It's a Michelin starred restaurant that the owner has turned over to some newer owners because he went to Moscow and opened one there. Excellent typical Sicilian cuisine. I'd highly recommend anyone staying in the Bolegnetta area eat there.
We headed for Messina to catch a ferry to the mainland late in the morning. We depended on the car's navigation system but the previous renters had set it to avoid motorways, so it put us on the coast road which would have meant a 4 hour trip rather than the 2 hours we expected. We finally headed up to the autostrade after going through Terme Immerse but the delay meant we just missed a 1:35 boat and had to wait 2 hours to get underway on the next one. It's a short trip but that meant we got to Marzi after dark. That's no problem because we've driven that route at least 6 times so we knew our way, even without navigation.
Franco's wife passed about 4 years ago after a nasty bout with cancer. His daughter Paola fixes dinner for him and her family daily and she was gracious enough to host us for dinner the two days we were there. We stayed at La Cisterna even though they don't regularly operate it now. The restaurant is closed. Had we known we may well have stayed in a hotel in the neighboring town of Roligano. I felt that we were imposing on them but Paola insisted we were not.
We spent most of the next day with Franco as he worked his livestock. He has 10 horses, dozens of rabbits and a huge hog. He's limited the number of pigs now since the restaurant's not in business. He used to raise 10 to 15 per year. As with all agritourismos all the food and wine is produced on the farm and is organic. As Franco says, "No medicines".
It was COLD in Marzi. Temperatures were near freezing. We took a short drive in the afternoon up in the Silla mountains. We watched the outside temperature drop steadily till we got to near the top when it did hit 0 Celsius and then it came back up to about 5 C as we headed back down to Marzi's 3000' level. While we enjoyed our stay we didn't want to impose too much so we headed back south after 2 nights. We did find a great pasticceria in Rogliano where we had breakfast while there. It was the standard Italian breakfast. Coffee and croissants, chocolate naturally. If you go, check out the Colosseo near the town center.
On Wednesday we headed back to Sicily. We spent the night in Bolognetta again before heading back to Sciacca. This time we took a side trip. On our way back we headed to Lercara Friddi, a town in central Sicily that was the home to the little Sicilian man who runs the Vieu Carre wine shop in New Orleans' French Quarter. Last summer we spent about 45 minutes soaking up some AC and large glasses of wine and conversation with him. We decided that we should try and get there while we are here. It was a short, one hour, addition to our travel. There's really nothing outstanding about the town. We arrived about noon, as the schools were letting out and the traffic was fierce.
After Lercara Friddi we drove towards Ribera. over the top of the mountains. We basically cut through the same area that the massive storm from the previous week went through. In many places the roads had signs showing the roads blocked but we headed on. The signs were simply left in place after the locals had cleared the mud that covered the roads from landslides and massive water washes. Surprisingly there was still a lot of damage, even at the top of the ridges. Only in one place was the road washed out for about 100 feet to a depth of about a foot but it was passable and we made it through. We stopped for a picnic on the side of the road after we had crested the mountains and were headed back down towards the coast. It was beautiful. This is the time of the year that Sicily is green. It better be. The storm that coursed through Sciacca dropped 6 months of rain in less than 3 hours. Anywhere we drove on the south side of the island's center, which lay in the storm's northeasterly path had evidence of flooding.
Tomorrow, or this evening, I'll post up another blog. We went to Agrigento to the museum. We've been to the Valley of the Temples twice before, with my sister, her husband and my brother on our 25th anniversary trip and another time with Rachel but we never made it to the museo. It'll probably be a short one.
Ciao for now.