Sicilia Spring 2020-1
OK, we’re back in Sicily at the Turkish Steps again. We arrived a week ago and i’ve finally gotten into the blog mode. We’ve spent a couple days getting over jet lag, we were awake for 32 hours (!) before hitting the sack. The next couple days we traveled to some of our favorite vineyards and stocked our “cellar” with a little over a case of Sicily’s best from Planeta, Fuedo Arancio and Mandarossa. We also hit a new one on the advice of Guenevere and Deborah at Planeta, Cantine Barbera about 2 Km from Menfi. We also have gone to Da Vittorio in Porto Palo for lunch and have gone to Antica Osteria della Vittoria in Sciacca to enjoy Sergio’s traditional Sicilian cuisine. It has been 3 years since we saw Genevere and Sergio and the reconnection was really welcome. We also were able to see Letizia at Fuedo Arancio. As with our other friends she immediately recognized us and we spent so much time with her that we had to wait 3 hours to go to other wineries, because like all places, they close between 1 and 4 PM, On our way back from the winery at Fuedo Arancio we drove back through the Belice valley to Santa Margherita d’ Belice which was heavily damaged in the 1968 earthquake and rebuilt almost entirely on site, The nearby town of Montevago was rebuilt next to the original site.
That’s OK. It gave us time to do a little reacquaintance with the local scenery. Above on Mt. Kronio there are some old olive groves and I took photos of some of the big old trees near an abandoned oleificio, oil pressing factory.
On our way back to Sciacca we drove through the Belice valley and found some beautiful landscapes and houses. There’s one, that if I won the lottery I’d buy. It’s in the middle of, basically nowhere, several Km from Menfi and closer to Sambuca than any other town. Living there would involve some sacrifices in convenience, that’s for certain.
We tried to get to the cathedral in Caltabellotta, again, we failed 3 years ago, and failed again. Upon returning to Verditecnica we found out that you can not drive there. Toto told me that the only way to get to the cathedral is by foot or donkey. Actually he said horse but the people left in the town are so poor they could only afford donkeys. Caltabellotta was the site in the 14th century where a peace treaty was made settling the War of the Sicilian Vespers. This town is definitely mountainous and old as you can see from the photos. We came back through Santa Anna towards Ribera. stopping at the Belvedere for the Castello Poggio Dianna
I’ve been at this most of the afternoon because photos take FOREVER, to upload and since I still have the damn splint on my finger typing is a real pain in the trump. Gonna save and publish this now. I’ll push it to the Facebook ad machine, but only to friends, not the public. don’t want a lot of advertising our absence while here.
Ciao for now.