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January Sicily and exploding cornetto al cioccolato

January Sicily and exploding cornetto al cioccolato

Old Jan 20th, 2017, 08:49 AM
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January Sicily and exploding cornetto al cioccolato

Thanks to all the Fodorites who advised against going to Sicily in January but then advised me on how to make the best of it. The trip involved meeting up with Kiwi relations, which happened perfectly at the tiny Catania airport.

I don't often hire a car but after a fine bit of upselling (you have to be impressed by the shear skill of the salespeople) we were on our way on a slightly damp 12C afternoon with a too large Volvo. The motorway to Siracusa was empty, as were all the roads wherever we went, but the signage for turnoffs on motorways were incredibly short (as we were to learn time and time again). The GPS in the rental car had not been updated for some years and not all the roads were in the database (not too new, just never loaded). Local drivers were... Italian, so no signaling, very aggressive road positioning and they like to drive right behind you.

Getting to the ancient island town of Ortigia was easy enough but, once on the island, the one-way-system proved a bit of a battle. The hotel (the Domus Mariae Benessere) is owned by nuns, but the regular staff were very friendly and helpful (the nuns just cruised about being nunish). The hotel is pretty quiet but looks out over the sea which might keep some people awake. Wifi was free (German hoteliers take note) and for E45/night or so was very good value. There is paid for parking at the entrance of the island, but we parked on the white zones outside the hotel (legal and free).

Days 2 and 4 proved to be fantastic days with clear blue skies days 1 and 3 were wettish, while the snows and heavy rain came towards the end of the trip. In the high tourist areas staff had a good level of English but bars in the smaller towns needed a bit of Italian to make it all go with a swing.

Local restaurants proved reasonable (though not all were open as we were in deep-bottom season) local jug wine was fine and the vegetables especially flavoursome. (Just how do the vegetables in the UK and the USA lose so much flavour? Please sir I know. Sir! Sir! 'cause the stupid Anglos grow vegetables to live in the fridge not for eating. Sir!).

Ortigia is made up of many tiny little streets, well worth exploring as you come across little gems down little alleys. Ortigia's cathedral is built around a temple and all the pillars are in place, so something like the Cordoba concept only smaller and Greek rather than Islamic.

Since the first 4 days were really family orientated I'll not go into those details, needless to say we managed to get to the Valley of the Temples (Greek mainly) in Agrigento, we found two good meals in the main town itself and generally felt it was a pleasant experience. These are the best such temples I've ever seen in Europe (those in North Africa are better but now inaccessible).

On another day we took a trip to Enna, the highest town on the island and climbed to the top of the highest tower on the tallest castle in town. The snow was about 6 inches deep, and the view towards some lower towns and the snow covered slopes of Etna were very impressive. From here we visited the Villa Romana del Casale. Without doubt this is the finest Roman villa I've seen with some fantastic mosaics and worth the visit to Sicily alone.

Another day we toured the Baroque masterpiece of Noto and the chocolate centre of Modica (makes it sound like Quality Street).

On the trip back to the airport we also dropped by the Archeological park of Siracusa which was fine.

So we had four rushed days of family chat, vegetarian food and probably far too many sweet cakes. The too large Volvo, the old GPS and tiny streets only gave us two major problems, basically narrow streets can be too small for a Volvo. Beware.
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 08:55 AM
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Now I want to go back to Sicily !
Good for you and thanks for the very positive report.
And what happened to the gelato ?
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 09:01 AM
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Just a bit too cold and I don't really like sweet things.

No gelati were harmed in my trip, though I did manage to fit in a sort of choped nut, frozen panna thing which was delicious. Also no Granite. Though I did try cannoli which proved a big let down.
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 09:10 AM
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Wow, you covered a lot of ground--good for you all. I agree about the Valle dei Templi in Agrigento. It is really an impressive sight. Site.

And I also agree with this: "the signage for turnoffs on motorways were incredibly short."

Thanks!
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 09:37 AM
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The view from the top of Enna was pretty impressive in early October as well. Very moonscape-y.

Whirl wind tour! More to come, I think?

Sicily is where our too large Ford Monteo got in a scrape with the side of a roundabout parking garage wall. Next visit we got a smaller car!

Love your abbreviated format. 'Impressions' are good...
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 09:41 AM
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Very enjoyable report Bilbo and it sounds as if your driving experiences were not dissimilar to ours. Also your opinion of cannoli.

Any more detail gratefully received.
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 09:57 AM
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Im with you on the canoli. I dont like it.

Yes Villa Romana is worth the trip!
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 10:08 AM
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Parte due. Hi Ann, hi all.

After a fond farewell at Catania I headed off for three nights in Palermo. I'd booked a seat on the coach from the airport on line, but I didn't need to have bothered as it was basically empty.

Palermo itself I had assumed would be a cross between say Naples and Bari, so gritty to the point of filthy. But I was surprised to find it a bit nicer than my expectation. The coach drops you at the back end of the railway station. At the front is a massive roundabout with lots of bus stops.

To buy tickets and get maps (they have a very useful one for free) you need to go to the AMAT kiosk across from the south corner of the station, where you can buy a 90 minute ticket (E1.40) or a day ticket (E3.50), you can only buy the day (giornata) tickets from a very few places, and as a tourist they make the most sense. The old town also has a free bus running around and around but for most visits you need the giornata. All this knowledge was ahead of me as I trudged 1.5 km into the dark wet night up to my hotel.

The Bio hotel (E43, free wifi and breakfast, bright and airey with new furniture) is in the hotel zone and takes up the top floor of a 7 storey building surrounded by hotels and restaurants and between the 101 and 102 bus routes. It proved perfect and I managed to avoid speaking any English at all there and virtually none in the local restaurants.

Supper that night was in the only Indian in this large city and, while basically a "caff" (Brits will know what I mean) was acceptable. The daughter of the house is the first Bangladeshi town planner in Palermo and the parents were justly proud.

Next day dawned wet and windy, and after a filling breakfast (ie not Italian). I headed off to get to Monreale for which I had to sort out bus tickets, catch a 101, 109 and a 389 all while trying to stay warm at 4C and dry in various hail storms which turned the marble pavements into skating rinks. It all worked out well until we “hit” a funerial cortege walking down the street; (some time later) we were back on schedule.

Still Monreale cathedral proved a fine piece of Norman work with golden mosaics all over the ceiling and walls. A few signs would have helped and I never did find the royal tombs (costs apply) because they seemed to have hidden the ticket office. Still after a warming lunch (in the only place open apart from two bars) and some more hail I bumbled back towards my hotel, a sharp detour to buy two Harry Potter books in Italian and a warming shower (long) and then I watched Castle, in Italian, before a hearty supper at Il Mirto e la Rosa which was excellent.

Next day I toured Palermo visiting the Castle/Parliament building, (just one room is like a small Monreale Cathedral) with an interesting show on shipwrecks in the Med, the main Cathedral (big and a bit dull), some more shopping and two art galleries towards the sea (one even had a Holbein and the other some great pointillists, Camillo Innocenti and Fausto Vagnetti (now there is a name to conjour up the devil with)). Generally the lack of organisation in these places is, well, Italian, but everyone was very kind and considerate while the weather improved to almost 8C and merely overcast.

There were a few other tourists in town, mainly Chinese from one cruise ship and Japanese from an other, but basically all the rest (ie anyone over about 5'9") could be counted below the fingers of two hands.

Next morning I caught the coach back to the airport through a snow storm. I'd had to miss my paid-for breakfast and so went to one of the three airport coffee bars, seeing a large cornetto I ordered it, only to become very unstuck (or actually very stuck) while trying to eat it, the resulting brown mess crawled up my arms and spread over my face. Aargh!
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 10:40 AM
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Just how do the vegetables in the UK and the USA lose so much flavour?

In the US, a lot has to do with expecting to eat things out of season. The rest is because they truck their produce clear across the country. It used to annoy me to find hard, tasteless, cold storage peaches and tomatoes in my New Jersey supermarket when the peaches and tomatoes in New Jersey were at their peak.

Eating things out of season may also be the norm in the UK; I don't have enough experience. In the UK, too much of the produce comes from greenhouses in the Netherlands.
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Old Jan 20th, 2017, 03:09 PM
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It's the sun makes them tasty! If you drive around the southern tip where Pachino is, in Sicily, there are hundreds and hundreds of greenhouses where vegetables are grown. Half of them are abandoned, for political reasons according to locals. We were told a great deal of the produce is being imported from Africa. Tunisia, etc.

Nevertheless, they are not going half way around the world, like our veggies. We get our peppers from Spain, oranges from Florida, strawberries from Cali, green beans from China (??) tomatoes from Mexico. No wonder we have to kill our food, and ourselves, with salt to give it flavor.

On Monreale, I loved the cloisters as much as the interior. And La Martorana, which looks strangely out of place in Italy..but then Sicily IS another country...
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 04:24 AM
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bilbo thanks for this, we went as far as buying a guidebook for Sicily but life had other plans. Other than the skating rink near Monreale, it sounds like winter was not such a bad time to visit (?)
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 05:26 AM
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Upside, no other tourists, no queues, low prices.
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 07:10 AM
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Bilbo,

Sounds like you and your family had a nice short visit. I guess some rain in January is to be expected.

Since Fodor's jumps around so much, I accidently hit your profile (something I never look at on this site). I noticed your greatest wish is to have sun and skiing.

You really need to come out and ski with us in Utah! We get lots of snow (and it's snowing right now) but also lots of bluebird days with lots of sun. Gorgeous!
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 08:07 AM
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Enjoyed your TR very much especially the great fresh foods controversy.
I often marvel that what looks like a tasty red tomato, is priced like a tasty red tomato and then ultimately delivers such disappointment - nothing but salt and mush. We call them "ghost tomatoes" here in the Midwest and wait impatiently for August and the farm stands that carry the real thing.
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 08:21 AM
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I suspect that they also use more olive pesto in a number of dishes to give them zing.
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 08:22 AM
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It proved perfect and I managed to avoid speaking any English at all there and virtually none in the local restaurants.>>

Bravissimo!

re the non-tasty veg controversy, lots of supermarket fruit and veg spends a long time in cold store before it hits the shelves; buying from a farm shop or similar is likely to mean that it's taken less time to get from ground to shop so it ought to taste better. or you could grow your own of course!
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Old Jan 21st, 2017, 09:31 AM
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seeing a large cornetto I ordered it, only to become very unstuck (or actually very stuck) while trying to eat it, the resulting brown mess crawled up my arms and spread over my face. Aarg>>

did you manage to resist the modern trend to take a selfie, bilbo?
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Old Jan 22nd, 2017, 01:55 AM
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Ann

1) I dislike the need to photo your food before eating it, seems a bit ego centric to me
2) You probably don't realise the situation I was in. Every part of my exposed skin had a bit of the stuff on me, I had no selfie stick and to get to my phone I would have had to reach inside my clothes with chocolate covered hands.
3) Even the barista had to smile as I walked away to the loo, once I saw the mirror I understood

Dayle, thanks for the kind offer. I once shared a jaucuzzi with a Utah snow ranch owner in a hotel on Mont Tremblant. While I have holidayed (is that how you spell it?) in the States, I'm having a pause right now. I could explain why, but probably more a lounge topic.
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Old Jan 22nd, 2017, 01:56 AM
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Just so you can see the great advice I received before this trip the link is

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...advice-hel.cfm
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Old Jan 22nd, 2017, 02:57 AM
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bilbo - my DS is great at getting food all over the place, but what you experienced sounds a bit extreme, even for him. Perhaps those cornetti should come with a government health warning!
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