Up and Down the Mountain

Feb. 6-7, 2017

We sat at breakfast on Monday morning and watched Etna covered in low clouds. The mountain never seems to look the same.

Our first night in Taormina, the sunset was red around the peak. White and black plumes were coming out to mix with passing clouds. 

Sunday, the peak was covered in snow, or maybe ice. The sky was clearer and we could make out several craters.

Monday, some snow may have burned off, but we couldn’t tell for sure. We had a hard time making out the peaks against the overcast sky. It was a picture of white on white.

By late morning, the sky had cleared considerably. The snow had receded to the highest parts of the mountain.

Meanwhile, down below we have flowers blooming under the palm trees.

We had been told about a couple of interesting sights to visit some distance from town. I guess if you could get to either one in a straight line, they wouldn’t be all that far away. But the only way to get there in a straight line is to fly, almost straight up.

The guide books say getting back down is easy, but walking up is only for the fittest. Others, apparently, are unlikely to survive.

So anyway, we took a cab to the chapel called Madonna della Rocca. It is built into a cave where the Virgin made a miraculous appearance a few centuries ago.

It’s a small space of white walls and short columns with a ceiling of raw stone. There are a small altar and a communion table and a few pews, so services may be conducted there.

On the walls are frames holding some tokens like others that have appeared in a few Italian churches we have visited. Neither Joanna nor I know their significance. They are mostly hearts of thin worked metal. They have ribbons attached at the top, as if they may be worn as talismans. 

One of the emblems wasn’t a heart, but a half mask, a metal oval with two eyes. It can’t be used as a mask, because the eyes are solid.

Another was a human torso with nipples and abs, much like the ancient Roman cuirass that we see in old illustrations.

If this sounds familiar to anyone, please let me know what they are for.

The chapel sits on a peak well above Taormina. It took a steep climb with plenty of switchbacks to get there.

We stood by a wall and took photos shooting down into the Greek theater. A geological plaque posted in the upper levels of the theater says that it is 250 meters above sea level.

We were far above that, but even at this height, we passed what appears to be a cherry tree in bloom.

The second stop was a tiny town called Castelmola, which occupies its own peak. The cab pulled into a plaza and the driver told us the way to the Piazza Duomo. 

The ancient streets are so narrow that they are closed to vehicles. We followed signs to the mother church, which like the Duomo in Taormina is named for Santa Claus.

We had already gone to church, so it was equal time now for a bar. We had been told by a lady at reception desk that the Bar Turrisi in Castelmola is “the most unusual bar in the world.”

I am not qualified to confirm “most unusual.” After all, I haven’t yet visited all the bars in the world, although I am trying.

The bar, which is next to the church, is decorated in a penis theme. The door handles are brass penises. There are penises on lamps, on figurines, in the floor mosaic. The drink menu is printed on a cutout penis. 

All very funny, and it’s quite a landmark here. You can’t mention Castelmola without somebody mentioning Bar Turrisi.

So we sat next to a penis lamp and had pistachio cake with a cup of espresso and a glass of red wine. We bought a phallic bottle of a Sicilian specialty, almond wine.

We came back to the hotel to take it easy for a while. Almost everything—stores of all kinds and restaurants—close for several hours each afternoon, so there’s little to do except have wine and sweets at a gelateria between 3 and 7.

We hadn’t walked much earlier in the day, so we went out for a stroll before dinner. The temperature had fallen and a wind had come up, so we stayed in the relative shelter of the Corso Umberto.

We went as far as the Duomo and then came back to Terrazza Angelo, where we had dinner Friday night. Larry had told me about a dish of pasta with sardines that is a Sicilian specialty. Angelo served it.

It is made with sardines, fennel, pine nuts, and a little tomato. It is not a red sauce. It is made in different ways, I guess.

This version had a pleasant surprise. There were raisins in the mix. It may sound wrong, but it works. Every once in a while to bite into that sweetness was a delight.

We had a bottle of Etna rosso, and Joanna helped me with it.

To be called Etna, the wines can be made from several grapes that must be grown on the hillsides of the volcano. We had a bottle labeled Murgo.

The wine was made principally, or maybe entirely, of a grape called Nerello Mascalese. Every one of the Etna reds that we have tasted is spectacular fun. 

Now that I’ve heard of it, I’ll look for it in the States.

I had another glass of it when we got back to the hotel. 

We walked up the Corso on Tuesday and decided to have lunch at a place that had just reopened, Il Ciclope. We’ve seen a lot of Cyclops faces on walls and in stores. Google says the Cyclopean Isles are not far from Etna, which puts them in our current neighborhood.

Il Ciclope was in flux on Monday night when we passed by. People were inside arranging furniture. 

They were still making small adjustments when we were there eating our fried anchovies and sweet-and-sour string beans. The Cyclops makes better fried anchovies than Maccarone does.

The menu listed an Etna bianco called Petralava, but the supply had run out. So I had the Petralava rosso instead. The volcanic soil gives the wine a mineral edge and this one had a little bite of tannin.

The Corso is a narrow street with an occasional motor vehicle. It is mostly occupied by people on foot. There are few bicycles in sight up here because everything seems to be uphill both ways, and just to get here, the cyclists usually drop dead somewhere around the 20th switchback.

There are shops selling antiques, clothes, shoes, and whatnot, even cheap souvenirs. I’m not sure that the locals shop here. It’s the kind of thing that people are prone to do on vacation: spend money on stuff they’d never buy at home.

Majolica, the brightly colored pottery, is very popular here. All over town, indoors and outdoors, we see large crowned heads of majolica, many with plants growing out the top.

There’s a dress shop on the Corso that has two vases in the window that look like something stolen from Bar Turrisi, a man’s head and a woman’s are decorated with crowns and ruffs of improbably colored phalluses.

I think we may have scandalized the ladies lunching at the cafe next door when we photographed the dickheads.

Several restaurants where we had taken dinner before were closed on Tuesday. We had planned to go back to Red & White to try the grilled fish, but it was one of the closed places.

Instead we walked downhill for a change to a place called Sapori de Mare. 

We’ve been eating so much seafood lately that we opted for roast chicken. Instead of pasta we had a plate of potatoes with a bit of tomato and some spinach on the side.

There was Petralava rosso on the menu, so I had a glass of that and followed it with a cheap Nero d’Avola that was a bit sharper than most, but still not bad.

I’m wrapping this up at the Grand Hotel Villa Politi in Siracusa. We caught a train at just about high noon at the Taormina station and got to Siracusa at quarter to two.

The ride brought us closer to the slopes of Etna. We were able to make out the terraces where the grapes grow.

A lot of people live there below the snow line. And in the path of occasional lava flows.

Part of the route passed through a stretch of very flat country, something we haven’t seen since we left Newark. It is a large plain surrounded by hills. It looked almost like Wyoming.

Like Wyoming, that is, except that everything is very green, as most of southern Italy and Sicily have been. It’s February and crops are thriving in the fields.

We are roughly at the same latitude as Yorktown, Va. No, I don’t know that. I just looked it up.

Anyhow, last time I was in Yorktown, it was February and bone-chilling cold.

OK, everyone, enough for now.

Stay warm wherever you are.

Harry