Tuesday, March 10, 2009 Agrigento, Sicily

After working our way out of Palermo (not an easy thing), we headed across Sicily to the southern coast. The interior is very California-like with rolling hills and green, green spring grass. Almost all of it is under cultivation. There are also some monster jutting up mountains which really make this a unique landscape. Except where there are people and their ugly buildings and trash, it is really a beautiful place.

We arrived at our hotel, Demetra Resort, around 11 AM but they were nice enough to let us have our room. It is a new place and our room is clean and modern. We decide to head down to the beach and have some lunch before starting our sightseeing. We find a place call Il Pescatore and had, you guessed it, fish. John had spaghetti with clams and a mixed salad and I had calamari fritte e insalata mista which I ordered in Italian myself. John usually does the ordering for both of us since I am Italian challenged.

Then we went to the Valley of the Temples on the outskirts of Agrigento. Actually most of the temples are on the hilltop so I am not sure why it is called a valley. Anyway, here are these temples built by the Greeks in the 5th and 6th century BC and modified by the Romans and then the early Christians. As you can see in the picture, the Temple of Concordia and one other are still standing. It was really amazing to see. Later we went to the museum associated with the site and took an audio tour of the many, many pieces of pottery and other items found in the area. Then we were exhausted and went back to the hotel.

We had dinner in the dining room at the hotel. This is the first hotel that we’ve stayed in that has had had its dining room open. For a modern hotel, the restaurant was funereale. There were these really large tables with a six candled candelabra on each table. There were very few people in the restaurant maybe four tables altogether. I had risotto with Mediterrean treats and clouds of grouper. (Their description) John had straciatella alla Romana and frittatina di Caprese. John’s main was an frittata with cheese and tomatoes. Really good. I wish I had gotten it instead of my fish clouds. We also had a bottle of Fiano from Sicily, very good.

After two straight days of tromping up and down hills on uneven pavements, we were so tired and headed off to take some ibuprofen and sleep.

Monday, March 9, 2009 Monreale, Sicily


School kids in Monreale

Originally uploaded by marymompics

We did so much today! Our day started with the usual Italian breakfast – either some sort of pastry or a ham sandwich. Then we headed up to Monreale. And by up, I mean up a giant cliff to the old medieval city.

Once there, we were on our way to visit the cathedral when we are accosted by an eager group of middle schoolers. On their field trip they are supposed to find an English speaking tourist and ask a series of questions. When they asked us where we were from and we answered that we were from California in the United States , they were all oohing and aahing like we were hobnobbing with movie stars. Anyway, it was very sweet and we took their picture and we made their day and they made ours.

Then we entered the cathedral of Monreale built in the 12th century. It was aglow with mosaics telling bible stories and creation stories and stories from the life of Christ. This was all done with the artistic sensibilities of the late middle ages. There is a heavy Byzantine influence with lots of stock faces and heavy outlining and skeletal and muscular details on the outside of the bodies. We listened to an audio tour which really was thorough in the examination of the artwork.

On our way back to the car we stopped at a Salumeri and bought some Sicilian meats and rolls for dinner. The owner was really proud of his foods and gave us samples of everything.

Our next stop was Segesta on the west side of the island. At Segesta there is a Greek doric temple from 500 BC totally in tact and a Roman amphitheater. I think the temple was the oldest thing we’ve ever seen (other than in random pieces.)

So a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting day. We topped that off with a dinner of our Sicilian proscuitti, capicole and salami and some wine at the bar.

Off to Agrigento tomorrow.



Monreale Cathedral

Sunday, March 8, 2009 Venice to Palermo


Dinner in Monreale

Originally uploaded by marymompics

Grrrr… I just lost my whole post due to this flaky system. I shall be much briefer this time.

First, happy birthday to Nathan. He turns 3 today. He is the sweetest, cutest, smartest grandchild ever! Of course, Sam is tied for this position as well.

We took a water bus to the airport instead of a water taxi this morning saving ourselves at least 75 euros. It was not a hassle at all. Two flights later and we are in Palermo, Sicily. We rent a car and plug in the Tomtom that George has generously lent us so that we won’t get lost. Hah! The Tomtom is sending us the wrong way down one way streets and had us turn left by turning right and then going around the block so we can head back in the right direction. We cannot find the hotel. Up and down hilly, twisty, narrow streets we search. We ask directions. Not so much English here. Just when we are about to give up, we come across the hotel by accident. Whew!

We are staying at the Conca d’Oro which is a very large hotel more given to wedding receptions than the casual traveler, I think. We see several young couples having interviews with the guy manning the desk. One man is wearing peach colored pants and a matching peach colored sweater. What was he thinking? We are taken care of by the general factotum, a spry older guy who carries oiur bags to the room, vacuums the rugs, acts as bartender, and drives us in the hotel van to our restaurant of choice and then comes back and picks us up. The hotel restaurant again is closed.

John and I practiced a lot of Italian before we came here. We are finding that our Italian is good enough if the person you are talking to speaks English, not so much when they don’t. So we are muddling along trying to understand what they are saying. But do they just say si or no or something short? No, we ask a question in our limited Italian and they go into this big explanation in rapid fire Italian. Non capisco.

Okay, just lost part of post again. We had dinner at a place in Monreale called Taverna del Pavone. It was pretty good. Some dishes we had were antipasti of fish, octopus and potato puffs, pasta one with broccoli and currents and one with beans and pancetta and a whole red mullet for John and veal in an almond sauce for me. Tired and stuffed we were happy to see our ride waiting for us outside the restaurant.

Saturday, March 7, 2009 – Venice

Another sunny day and warmer temperatures!  Today was our Accademia day.  Yay!  In this museum are so many pre- and early Rennaisance paintings.  Although we’ve been here a lot of times, it is still amazing to see all the incredible altarpieces with their saints, annunciations, and coronations all gilt and stil beautifully vibrant.  There are also some dark Byzantine looking pieces with dark outlining and weird skeletal painting on the outside of the the bodies.  The museum also had some new rooms open with paintings, especially by Carpaccio, of Venetian history.  In a painting of San Marco, the piazza looked just the same hundreds of years ago.  The only things missing were the pigeons!

The hotel here was offering “snacks” in the afternoon.  So we sat outside and people-watched while having a snack of tuna tartare with parsley pesto and baccala – hardly the type of food one thinks of as a snack.  It’s fun to watch the people go by.  There are Italian women in stiletto heels, children on scooters, and all sorts of tourists.  We’ve run into many fewer Americans while we’ve been here.  In the breakfast room at the hotel  we are the only ones.

People watching outside the hotel

Mary at the snack table
Mmmm... good street food
More yummy snacks

For dinner we ate the restaurant across the way again.  We both had the carne regional seasonal menu.  It was good but not as good as the other night but we were not feeling really adventurous or up to trekking over bilions of bridges looking for something else.

Tomorrow we head to Palermo.  First a boat and then two flights will take up most of the day.  We rent a car there for most of the rest of our trip.  We’ll have a little more flexibility to explore some out of the way places.  Should be fun!

Our fish key and wine

 

Friday, March 6, 2009 – Venice, Italy


Squid Chandelier

Originally uploaded by marymompics

Well, yay, it finally stopped raining! Even though it is kind of cold out, the weather is a vast improvement over yesterday. Today we decided to continue our church art tour and to stop in at the shop where we bought our painting last May.

After breakfast, we took a route over the Accademia bridge to La Perla, the shop where we bought a painting last year. The shop had reopened in larger premises but we didn’t really find anything there that we “couldn’t go home without.” Actually, we can’t take home anything since we packed our tiny suitcases as full as they could be before we left. I feel guilty about not bringing anything back for the kids but there’s just no room. Any way, from there we made our way across the Rialto bridge which was way too crowded with tourists and over to San Paolo, San Rocco and the Frari churches.

We saw many Tintoretto’s . I especially like the Ultima Cenas (Last Suppers). Tintoretto places the table at a diagonal with Jesus at the end or near the end of the table in the foreground. This makes Jesus bigger without ruining any of the perspective and what with all the figures twisting about , the whole painting is awash in movement while being spotlit. We also saw the great Bellini work in the Frari and as many times as we’ve seen this altarpiece, it’s still amazing.

After tromping around for several hours we decided to head back to the hotel and eat somewhere nearby. We had pizza and salad at a so-so place on the Guidecca Canal. Although John will never cry “uncle”, I could see that after not sleeping so much last night (I slept great) and walking all over Venice this morning that by 3 PM he was dragging. So we went back to the room and he had a big nap.

Tonight we had dinner at Taverna San Trovaso. I had a scallop antipasto and some spaghetti. I wasn’t feeling too adventurous. John had sarde in saor (sardines in a sweet and sour sauce) and a fish soup full of various crustaceans. His meal looked like a lot of work. I would rate this dinner as mediocre. It is hard to find non-touristy food in Venice. I think we should go back to the place we ate last night for our last night here. The food there was memorable.

Tomorrow we visit the Accademia. I have been waiting for a sunny day since the paintings are lit by ambient light. I think it’s supposed to be sunny tomorrow.

Thursday, March 5, 2009 Venice, Italy

When confronted with the possibility of rain, John and I decided, so what, we won’t melt. I guess given our actions today, we had a meltdown. After having a quite nice breakfast at the hotel, we put on our rain gear and ventured out into the cold, howling, rainstorm to visit churches with incredible artwork. In Venice you can buy a pass good for a year and go to all the churches. Once there, you’re given either a laminated information sheet or an audio tour describing the church. After buying our pass we first went to Santa Maria del Rosario which is also called Gesuati. It has much decoration by Tiepolo. We continued on and saw San Sebastiano. While enjoying the churches and artwork, we were also enjoying the ability to get out of the tempest.

A couple of more churches and it became apparent that we were soaked – pants wet up to the knee, shoes wet, jackets beginning to soak through etc. And now were several canals away from the hotel. It’s not like you can just hail a cab and get a ride home in Venice. So John made the executive decision to abort the tour and head back. On the way back we passed a market where we picked up some provisions for lunch. Finally back at the hotel, we crashed. We got up briefly around 3 PM for our room picnic but then, at least I, fell into a soporific state, sleeping, waking briefly and then sleeping again until almost 7 PM. I guess I was tired.

We went downstairs in the hotel and enjoyed a glass of wine and potato chips at the bar. Unfortunately our Albanian friend was not on duty. Around 8 PM, when we deemed it late enough to go find some dinner, we ventured just across from the hotel to Ristorante Agli Alboretti. They had a tasting menu to celebrate spring. Or at least some rain-soaked, chilly, windy season. John had the fish tasting menu with courses of mussels, risi e bisi, sea bream and Venetian biscuits and I had the meat tasting menu with sopressa with polenta, pasta in a meat ragout, pork chops and the biscuits. Plus we got with this, prosecco, a glass of wine to pair with the meal and a glass of moscato with dessert. Hard times must be a-happening because this all cost E30 each. It wasn’t like this was some touristy place because there were several tables of Italians eating there.

Of course there were some Americans and, of course, they needed to talk to us.

So here we are at the end of the day pretty full, a little rueful that we couldn’t have accomplished more on the sightseeing end, and wondering if we’ll ever be able to sleep tonight given how much we slept today.

I guess I’ll know tomorrow.

Wednesday, March 4, 2009 Venice

We left SFO yesterday, flew into JFK (dodging the big snowstorm of yesterday) and then on to Milan, Italy. We had some pretty fierce tailwinds and managed to make the trip in well under the allotted time. Still, it’s a long trip. Having arrived in Milan early, we were able to sample the rush hour in a major Italian city. Bad, but not too bad, we only came to a complete stop a couple of times. John stalled the car once or twice which added to the excitement. We are not used to a manual transmission.

On to Venice – we stopped a couple of times for coffee to accomplish the whole staying awake thing, got totally mixed up due to the new road outside of Venice which just opened last month but finally found our way in, dumped the car and took the water taxi to our hotel.

Did I mention it was raining? Now you ‘d think that after the daily rain in California, we would be totally used to it but this rain has bigger drops and more wind and it’s colder besides. Oh well, we won’t melt. And we figure it will keep the tourists from over-running the city.

But you know, we don’t really need the rain to accomplish that. It appears that the world economy is keeping tourists home and the effect in Venice is noticeable. We looked for a place to have lunch and it was really difficult to find one. Most of the restaurants were closed. Finally we opted for a small cafe and had a pizza. Later we went down to the bar/restaurant for our dinner of potato chips, olives and wine. While talking to our multi-lingual bartender/art management student from Albania, we find out the restaurant had closed last week due to lack of tourists. All the staff has been let go except him. We discuss many things. He is very earnest and is hopeful for his new government in Albania, in love with Venice and the fact that it is a living art museum, and complementary about the U.S. He says that people are hopeful that President Obama can make a difference. He says that everybody wants to be like the Americans – embracing the culture and style. He says that in the last century the U.S. has really changed the world. I think he meant this in a good way. But it looks like things are hurting here and we are curious to see if the slowdown encompasses more of Venice than just the local restaurants and our hotel.

More tomorrow.