Santa Margherita, Montevago, Partanna, Santa Ninfa, Gibellina (Nuova) & Poggioreale. Earthquake country.
On December 8, Feast of the Immaculate Conception, we drove west and north from Sciacca through Santa Margherita de Belice, Montevago, Partanna, Santa Ninfa, Nuova Gibellina and Poggioreale. We chose this direction to avoid the road conditions we have found to the north and east of Sciacca left over from the massive storm almost 2 weeks ago. Hell, it cost me 12 euro to get the car washed by hand at a local lavaggio. They had to pressure wash the thing before they could even start to wash it due to the mud from the Ribera to Cianciana trip.
There's not a lot of old structures left in these towns with the exception of Partanna. All were severely damaged or literally destroyed by a massive earthquake in 1968. Santa Margherita's old church had been repurposed as a museum and the new chiesa is a modern, beautiful structure. In Partanna a few of the old buildings remain but most of the city is new construction. Gibellina and Poggioreale original sites have been abandoned and new cities have been built. We were able to stay on SS188 through most of the trip. SP5 from Santa Ninfa to the original site of Gibellina and Poggioreale was pretty well impacted from the earlier storm but at least it hadn't rained lately so the mud was dry and I don't have to get the car re-washed already.
In Santa Margherita there's a new church. One of the more modern styles we've seen. We have not been to the new cathedral in Siracusa yet but it's another. The central seating in this church is semi-circular. There are huge stained and painted glass windows at the west end overlooking a large staircase leading up from the SS188. The majority of the buildings in this town are modern. Typical square concrete or stuccoed reinforced block structures with no real redeeming visual content. As a result we didn't take photos of this or most of the other towns today except for Partanna.
Montevago's city limits butt up against Santa Margherita's. The map indicates that there's some separation between them but that's not actually true. We drove off the highway to check out Montevago's centro but there's only modern structures and piazza's in the town so we headed on toward Partanna.
SS188 is identified as a scenic highway, and that's no surprise. These towns are all classic hill towns. As you leave Montevago you drop down into a broad, deep valley. Partanna is on the hilltop at the other side. You can see it in the following shots from a curve in the road where there was enough room to mostly pull off the pavement and be seen from both directions. There are not many on these highways and you can't always trust the oncoming traffic to stay in their lane. This is made even more difficult by the lack of lane markings so folks around here use more than their half quite frequently.
Sicily has several hot springs, terme, throughout the island. There is a well developed spa in Sciacca that has been used since the time of the Greeks. Our trip to the top of Mt. Kronio where the basilica of San Calogero is located is at the site of a cavern where some of the springs emanate. As we drove across the valley, just before getting to the provincial border there was an industrial site and a sign for Terme Acqua Pia that pointed to a side road that ran next to the "factory". Well, we had time so we decided to take a look. We had not anticipated what we found. At the end of the road we found over a dozen cars in a parking lot. There is a real nice mineral bath spa with a swimming pool, several natural warm mineral pools and a restaurant. We had purchased some rolls, mortadella and cheese before leaving Sciacca for cucina del strada so we didn't try the restaurant. They had no brochures but we were invited to take a look around and check out their website by the proprietor. Obviously since this was a holiday and most shops were closed folks had taken advantage and gone to the spa. No one was swimming. The pool appeared to be open but no chaise lounges were set up. Being the off-season you probably would need to just grab one if you wanted. We didn't find the restaurant, although we did not go all the way back on the site. There appeared to be more natural pools and a bunch of people further in on the property. Maybe the restaurant was back there. After we had wandered around and were leaving we spoke with the proprietor and told him we were staying in Sciacca. He replied that the baths there were a lot closer. Despite that we found this location really nice due to its rural nature.
Leaving Terme Acqua Pia we headed back uphill towards Partanna. Our favorite olive oil comes from this town. It's not cheap. A large can is close to $45 USD at Big John's PFI and the prices there are lower than you'll find anywhere else in Seattle. Partanna was affected by the 1968 quake but appeared to be not as badly damaged as Santa Margherita and Montevago. The streets in Partanna were still narrow and old buildings were quite evident. More modern ones have been built but it's hard to tell if that's simply from growth or as rebuilding the city. Many of the houses have been repaired/remodeled and have modern exteriors, but that's the same with lots of towns. There is plenty of evidence of the quake's damage though. Old churches' walls and remaining campaniles have been left standing,as at the Chiesa of San Francesco. Much of the time a church's exterior walls serve as walls to adjoining buildings. There's no roofs left and side chapel niches are still evident. Partanna's old castle, Castile Grefio, is pretty much intact on the southwest point of the city's hilltop.
We left Partanna and drove past Santa Ninfa to Gibellina, which is to the north and near A29, the autostrada from Palermo/Trapani to Castelvetrano. This is actually Nuova Gibellina. Santa Margherita, Montevago, Partanna and Santa Ninfa appeared to be rebuilt on their original sites. Gibellina was totally destroyed by the 1968 quake and the city was rebuilt several kilometers away, down in the valley next to the highway. This allowed an opportunity to include some industrial development for jobs, although I'll wager that most of the money ended up in the pockets of politicians and mafiosi. We backtracked from Nuova Gibellina to Santa Ninfa in order to catch a couple smaller highways to drive up past the ruins of the original Gibellina toward Poggioreale and SS624, the Palermo/Sciacca highway. On the way we stopped for a picnic on the side of the road, just above the Grotto of San Ninfa in a small nature preserve. It was getting late and we weren't sure how long a walk would be required to get to the grotto so we "passed" on it. Maybe some other day.
Our route, SP5, took us through what was left of the original Gibellina. There were no structures remaining intact and nothing noteworthy enough to stop and take a photo. At the most there were a few walls, or more correctly partial walls, of one storey still standing. Most wall sections still left looked like Greek and Roman excavations, maybe 3 to 4 feet tall and only 5 to 10 feet long. All were overgrown by vines and brush. There was a small church and cemetery still there. The church was not much more than a chapel on a curve of the road and had been recently stuccoed, as it was nice and white with no cracks visible. There are a few farm houses and shepherd's cabins along the highway and we ran into more flocks this afternoon than we have before.
Pretty soon after eating we came upon our turn towards Poggioreale and the Palermo/Sciacca highway. As you can tell from the shadows in the above photo it was getting later in the day. The sun's setting about 4:30 in the afternoon as we approach the solstice. By the time we got back to Verdetecnica it was pretty much dark.
Poggioreale, like Gibellina, took the brunt of the 1968 earthquake but it was not as badly beaten. Make no mistake. The town was destroyed completely and no attempt was made to rebuild on that site. The "ruderi", ruins, are shown on the Michelin map and that's partially why we took this route but we did not expect what we found. Poggioreale's new location, about 5km south of it's original site, is still on a hilltop, though lower and pretty much next to the highway. There are still beautiful vistas from by the old town but they are tempered by the remains as you can see. The town literally crumbled in place and was left to eventually be covered by brush, although there's a lot more substance to the ruins than at Gibellina.
Not sure what we'll do today. I couldn't sleep anymore and got up to finish this. Time to get the wife out of bed. It's sunny and almost 9 AM.
Ciao.