Our vacation in Sicily: first few days
Apr. 19th, 2014 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskitethis year's vacation is in Sicily. You can see our (unsorted and unedited) photos via iCloud.
Our first day in Sicily was a bit of a blur... Including getting to the airport, we were on the move for about 18 hours, and awake for 28, so this and jetlag took the edges off the experience. I do say, though, that I'm ticked off at KLM for their economy class seating. I'm not a huge guy--only about 6 feet--but the seat spacing was so tight my knees were touching the seat gefore me, and there was no way to put on or take off my boots without standing in the aisle. I like to believe there's a special place in Dante's Hell for engineers who design things and then don't actually use them to ensure that they work.
No major problems along the way, apart from a few moments wondering whether they'd lost our bags during one of the transfers between flights. Turns out they'd routed our bags to another carousel Without any warning. While Shoshanna was off looking for the lost bags service To report the loss, I spotted another carousel rotating happily all by itself, and lo and behold, there were our bags. We also Worried for a moment when we couldn't find the driver for the shuttle service that was supposed to take us to Millazo, where we'd take a shuttle for the Aeolian Islands the next day. We eventually spotted the driver and all was well.
As noted earlier, everything was a bit of a blur, but Aetna stood out because we had to drive around it on our way north. It's a huge and impressive mountain that rises above and dominates the surrounding cities. You can't possibly miss it, and it's a constant reminder, like the background music in a horror film, of what could happen at any moment.
Our B&B, Il Vicolo, was pleasant enough. About a 15-minute walk from the harbor, so an easy trip even with all our possessions on our back. Nothing special to report, but warm, quiet, and a convenient place to overnight before taking the boat to the islands the following morning. Our host, Giuseppe, recommended a local restaurant, Casalinga, that was quite good. Had a very comfortable feel to it, and good food. A decent shower too, with enough room for my shoulders, which is rare in my experience in Europe.
Next morning, prima colazione (breakfast) was cornetti (croissants with powdered sugar), capuccino, and (a pleasant surprise since we'd been told to expect carbohydrate-only breakfast) ham and cheese sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. Plus, a bowl of chocolate eggs in the lobby, since it's right before Easter. A brisk hike down to the harbor, where my limited Italian was good enough to get us the correct tickets without having to resort to English at all. Woot!
The hydrofoil to the island of Lipari was less fun than I'd hoped. It moved fast enough, but we weren't allowed on deck, and the windows were tiny. Once it got going, it had an odd sort of motion, not quite in synch with the waves... almost like a beat or harmonic instead. Still, it was a new experience, and got us to Lipari in less than half the time of the regular ferry. Our hostess from the B&B, Diana Brown, met us at the dock and walked us back to the B&B. we're up on the 3rd floor, with our own balcony and a nice view of the surrounding hills.
Our first day on Lipari (prounced "lip-aree", with emphasis on the first syllable), was spent mostly walking around and getting a feel for the town. We located all the restaurants our hostess recommended, chose a couple that looked like best bets for future meals, and climbed up to the Castella, the fortified heights above the harbor that contained the cathedral and the museum of the Aeolians. It's a stiff climb, but you get great views of the surrounding countryside. The museum is also excellent, with a surprising quantity of artefacts ranging from the neolithic through to premodern times (Norman and Spanish occupations). They had a surprisingly good collection of Greek pottery--the kind with the black background and orange figures that you've undoubrtedly seen before in art books. There are few intact pieces of any size, but they've done a great job reassembling the jigsaw puzzles of the shattered pieces to produce wholes that don't look too much like Frankenstein's monster. I think the Greek pottery was my favorite part, though they had a decent collection of Greek theatrical masks. (Presumably objets d'art for theatergoer-colectors(?), since the largest was no more than half the size required to cover even a child's face.) The collection of amphorae and other findings from sunken ships was sobering. I don't naturally think of the Mediterranean as a particularly dangerous sea compared to the Atlantic or Pacific, but it does have a fetch of several hundred kilometers from east to west, which is more than enough to brew up some significant storms.
We also had a nice wander through the local cemetary, which seems like an odd choice until you consider all the stories it holds. Thereare the unspoken ones about the real people behind the tombstones, of course, that you'll never know. But there are also the implied stories, such as the children who died before their 8th birthday, and the unintentional stories, such as the young woman who died a virgin, "in terrible torment" according to our best translation. How easily that torment could have been cured. There are the clear signs of undying love, with fresh flowers still being placed on a tomb more than 30 years after the person's death.
Dinner was at the Kasbah, which was lovely: I had vegetable ravioli and grilled vegetables. Also, very attentive and friendly service. My Italian has not improved greatly, but remains serviceable; more importantly, I only use French by conditioned reflex about half the time. We discovered a really nice wine quite by accident: Cento Passi, gown organically in land confiscated from the Mafia. How could we not try it? We'd ordered the red, but got the white instead, and by the time we noticed, they'd already uncorked the bottle and we didn't want to send it back. But fortunately, it was lovely... Not sweet, not dry, but somewhere nicely in between. I think this is the first wine I've liked enough to drink half the bottle! Our second dinner was at Anfora, and it was good, but Kasbah was better. Highly recommended if you're in Lipari.
Our first day in Sicily was a bit of a blur... Including getting to the airport, we were on the move for about 18 hours, and awake for 28, so this and jetlag took the edges off the experience. I do say, though, that I'm ticked off at KLM for their economy class seating. I'm not a huge guy--only about 6 feet--but the seat spacing was so tight my knees were touching the seat gefore me, and there was no way to put on or take off my boots without standing in the aisle. I like to believe there's a special place in Dante's Hell for engineers who design things and then don't actually use them to ensure that they work.
No major problems along the way, apart from a few moments wondering whether they'd lost our bags during one of the transfers between flights. Turns out they'd routed our bags to another carousel Without any warning. While Shoshanna was off looking for the lost bags service To report the loss, I spotted another carousel rotating happily all by itself, and lo and behold, there were our bags. We also Worried for a moment when we couldn't find the driver for the shuttle service that was supposed to take us to Millazo, where we'd take a shuttle for the Aeolian Islands the next day. We eventually spotted the driver and all was well.
As noted earlier, everything was a bit of a blur, but Aetna stood out because we had to drive around it on our way north. It's a huge and impressive mountain that rises above and dominates the surrounding cities. You can't possibly miss it, and it's a constant reminder, like the background music in a horror film, of what could happen at any moment.
Our B&B, Il Vicolo, was pleasant enough. About a 15-minute walk from the harbor, so an easy trip even with all our possessions on our back. Nothing special to report, but warm, quiet, and a convenient place to overnight before taking the boat to the islands the following morning. Our host, Giuseppe, recommended a local restaurant, Casalinga, that was quite good. Had a very comfortable feel to it, and good food. A decent shower too, with enough room for my shoulders, which is rare in my experience in Europe.
Next morning, prima colazione (breakfast) was cornetti (croissants with powdered sugar), capuccino, and (a pleasant surprise since we'd been told to expect carbohydrate-only breakfast) ham and cheese sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs. Plus, a bowl of chocolate eggs in the lobby, since it's right before Easter. A brisk hike down to the harbor, where my limited Italian was good enough to get us the correct tickets without having to resort to English at all. Woot!
The hydrofoil to the island of Lipari was less fun than I'd hoped. It moved fast enough, but we weren't allowed on deck, and the windows were tiny. Once it got going, it had an odd sort of motion, not quite in synch with the waves... almost like a beat or harmonic instead. Still, it was a new experience, and got us to Lipari in less than half the time of the regular ferry. Our hostess from the B&B, Diana Brown, met us at the dock and walked us back to the B&B. we're up on the 3rd floor, with our own balcony and a nice view of the surrounding hills.
Our first day on Lipari (prounced "lip-aree", with emphasis on the first syllable), was spent mostly walking around and getting a feel for the town. We located all the restaurants our hostess recommended, chose a couple that looked like best bets for future meals, and climbed up to the Castella, the fortified heights above the harbor that contained the cathedral and the museum of the Aeolians. It's a stiff climb, but you get great views of the surrounding countryside. The museum is also excellent, with a surprising quantity of artefacts ranging from the neolithic through to premodern times (Norman and Spanish occupations). They had a surprisingly good collection of Greek pottery--the kind with the black background and orange figures that you've undoubrtedly seen before in art books. There are few intact pieces of any size, but they've done a great job reassembling the jigsaw puzzles of the shattered pieces to produce wholes that don't look too much like Frankenstein's monster. I think the Greek pottery was my favorite part, though they had a decent collection of Greek theatrical masks. (Presumably objets d'art for theatergoer-colectors(?), since the largest was no more than half the size required to cover even a child's face.) The collection of amphorae and other findings from sunken ships was sobering. I don't naturally think of the Mediterranean as a particularly dangerous sea compared to the Atlantic or Pacific, but it does have a fetch of several hundred kilometers from east to west, which is more than enough to brew up some significant storms.
We also had a nice wander through the local cemetary, which seems like an odd choice until you consider all the stories it holds. Thereare the unspoken ones about the real people behind the tombstones, of course, that you'll never know. But there are also the implied stories, such as the children who died before their 8th birthday, and the unintentional stories, such as the young woman who died a virgin, "in terrible torment" according to our best translation. How easily that torment could have been cured. There are the clear signs of undying love, with fresh flowers still being placed on a tomb more than 30 years after the person's death.
Dinner was at the Kasbah, which was lovely: I had vegetable ravioli and grilled vegetables. Also, very attentive and friendly service. My Italian has not improved greatly, but remains serviceable; more importantly, I only use French by conditioned reflex about half the time. We discovered a really nice wine quite by accident: Cento Passi, gown organically in land confiscated from the Mafia. How could we not try it? We'd ordered the red, but got the white instead, and by the time we noticed, they'd already uncorked the bottle and we didn't want to send it back. But fortunately, it was lovely... Not sweet, not dry, but somewhere nicely in between. I think this is the first wine I've liked enough to drink half the bottle! Our second dinner was at Anfora, and it was good, but Kasbah was better. Highly recommended if you're in Lipari.