I am in Vigliatore. It’s a tiny and relatively new (100 years old) Sicilian town in the north west corner of the island, by the sea. The place is basically a suburb with a few farms in it, but not far from here are some hot spots.
Tindari - stuck up a near by mountain - used to be Tyndaris, a Greek settlement about 3000-3500 years ago. The theatre is still there from those days which in the Summer still gets used by locals for staging plays. The Roman temple around the corner, gymnasium and houses are still in relatively good shape. The town itself is tiny, and is also host to a 400 year old church which houses a 900 year old Madonna and baby Jeebus from the Eastern Roman Empire which washed up on the beach below.
Barcellona (our Barcellona) and Milazzo are both crackers of towns. Milazzo is famous because Garibaldi landed on its beach in 1860 with a thousand troops with the intention of kicking arse and chewing gum. As it turned out he was all out of gum and as a result Italy was a united country by the end of 1861.
Siracusa used to be Archimedes’ home town. Zareen and I spent two nights there checking out the sites. Archimedes helped keep the joint and independent Greek city state for a while, but eventually the Romans swept through it like a storm, killing and maiming. Fortunately most of the resulting mess was mopped up and it is now a picturesque holiday destination.
We checked out the temples of Apollo and Athena, as well as bits of Greek wall and a Roman arsenal. On the first night a big 16th century silver statue of Santa Lucia was paraded through the streets in a procession similar to that in The Godfather II when Vito kills Fanucci, completely with brass marching band, but with more impressive fireworks at three different stops. The statue is solid silver and is complete with a dagger through the unfortunate young lady’s neck. I saw some folks rub their kid on it for good luck - we’re so much more advanced than Pagans! Since it’s solid silver it took 6 hours for the procession to make it from St Lucia’s place to the temple of Athena, which has recently been turned into a Catholic church. (this is even worse than what they did to the big old Commonwealth Bank in Perth!)
Plenty of good grub is being consumed, especially at my zio and zia’s place. My cousins are an energetic bunch and say hilarious stuff like
“It’s hot in Australia, when I visit I will come nude, without underpants.” Frikkin Torres. Little Maddalena, aged 5, put on a headband with a fork stuck in it and announced she was an Indian, with the intention of making Zareen feel at home. While we are on the subject of Ms Kuriyan feeling at home here, four different people have believed her to be Sicilian. I guess Dennis Hopper was right.
K-Bot, tell me how to post photos.
Selah!
GT