Avola: Campsite and Town

We changed pitches after two weeks and moved to one overlooking the sea. These would be premium spots in high season but at this time of the year it’s almost deserted. We can sit in shorts between 11.00 am and 3.00 pm when the sun is shining and look over the beach to the sound of the waves.

There is direct access onto the beach where we have walked most evenings. It’s a nice sandy beach, but somewhat marred by litter, particularly at the far end which has been used as a dumping ground. They perhaps clean it up in season. In contrast, the campsite itself is immaculately tidy.

The access to the beach is through a steel gate set in the wall with the stout green railings on the mid-left of the photo so security is good, but looking directly up into the site from the beach you could think you were staying at Wormwood Scrubs-by-sea.

The headland in the distance makes a pleasant destination for the evening walk and is covered in wild irises.

The town of Avola is 2 miles from the campsite and about the size of Huntingdon. It is ambient but unspectacular in comparison with places like of Noto, and is laid out in a grid pattern of narrow streets with a fiendish one-way system. It is a true maze; it seems always to send you in the opposite direction from where you want to go, then round in circles so you lose orientation completely. Now “lost” becomes “totally lost”. Throw in for good measure erratic local driving and unpredictable pedestrians.

Avola isn’t really that sinister, it’s a regular town, as in the photo below of one of its many squares. Just go in by bus, or walk in, bike in, crawl in. But don’t drive in.

Our stay here has been very enjoyable. Tomorrow, Wednesday 15^th Jan, we leave for Montallegro on the south western end of Sicily. Or simply, we’re moving 100 miles to the left.

Jan 9th: Siracusa Again

Siracusa has 2700 years of history so there’s plenty to see. We’d been told that the catacombs were worth a visit. So here we are at the entrance, a lovely old ruined church. Problem: closed.

But just round the corner was another interesting building. See if you can guess what it is.

It looks like a space museum or a ship’s sail but is in fact the Cathedral of the Madonna delle Lacrime, the Madonna of the tears. It’s dedicated to a statue of the Madonna that, we are reliably informed, shed real human tears from 29^th Aug to 1^st Sept 1953. It seems unfair to let the antiquities in Syracuse hog the whole show, so let’s go inside and have a look at something totally modern. Here’s the lower floor.

It’s a large area featuring in the foreground what must have been the foundations of an ancient church. The brightly coloured blue-and-green “fishing umbrella” contains religious effigies when viewed from the other side. It’s a stark and sombre but powerful effect, very much in keeping with the solemn atmosphere of the ancient cathedrals.

The level above doesn’t really come over in the same way.

 

Again, it’s a vast space, now directly under the tall concrete conical spire. This floor is a cross between a Star Trek set and a multi-storey car park and it’s lost the tranquil dignity of the lower level. You just can’t win as a modern designer.

Now here’s an unusual find in the cathedral grounds

Well, yes, it’s a tree, with some quite pretty blooms that are too far away to see properly. And there are big khaki pods, also too far away to see properly, some of which are splitting with white cotton fibre spilling out. It’s a silk floss tree, related to the better known kapok tree whose fibres are also used commercially for stuffing. What you also can’t see is the spikey bark, one of just a few trees in the world with this sort of protection.

Below is a close-up. The spikes are a good two inches long and razor sharp. I shouldn’t think they get too many drunks lurching against these of an evening.

So an unscheduled but interesting morning visit. We had a less interesting pizza for lunch, and then on to the Neapolis, a large archaeological park, in the afternoon. That’s another blog.

Jan 7th: Noto

In 1693 the whole of this south eastern part of Sicily was devastated by an earthquake. A few towns were rebuilt very quickly, courtesy of rich patrons who employed top architects and designers. The town of Noto is the best preserved of these and as such is a tourist showpiece. This church and convent is an example from the main street.

All the buildings in town are in the Baroque style. What’s Baroque, you ask? It’s an ornate design style much used between 1600 and 1830 in Europe, and also exported to European colonies. The internet is so useful.

The recent restorations here make some of the buildings look new, like the cathedral coming up next. The dome collapsed in 1998 so that part of it is actually new. I suppose it’s a fine point as to how much something can be restored and still claim to be essentially the original, like that excellent  brush you had that had three new heads and two new handles.

The detail is almost more impressive than the grand scale edifices. The carvings on the balcony supports all along this street are exquisitely intricate. This particular balcony is held up by five lions, all in slightly different poses. None of the lions’ faces looks very happy, especially the one nearest, on the corner.  Oh no, not dry bones again!

Presumably due to the time of year practically everything was closed, so we had a lovely wander through the town, but didn’t go inside any buildings. It’s on different levels so our walk would unexpectedly reveal a fountain or a building as in the final photo selection.

The last one was a palace that is now the Town Hall. They know how to treat their public servants round here.

Jan 2nd: Siracusa

In the UK this city is known by its ancient name of Syracuse. The oldest part is a small island just offshore, founded in 733 BC by the Greeks. Being an island it was easy to defend. It had two excellent harbours and fertile land on the mainland. With these advantages the settlement grew and prospered, and within 100 years was a thriving major city.

This is one of the harbours today, with no raiding parties in sight: the pirates are already on shore laying siege to the tourists.

A few more centuries on and Siracusa had become one of the principal Mediterranean powers. In keeping with this wealth and influence some splendid buildings were constructed, e.g. the Temple of Athena in 485 BC. Little normally survives of anything that old due to decay, earthquakes (in this part of the World), and pillaging of the building materials.

However, here is an exception: the temple of Athena was incorporated into an early Christian church, so protecting it. It is visible today as part of that structure that has itself been further modified many times. The arches are Norman, through which the temple columns are visible. It is now the Duomo (cathedral) of Siracusa, and the effect is unique.

To give an idea of how huge these temple columns are, the next photo shows a person walking at the far end of the aisle.

The cathedral is dedicated to a local saint, Santa Lucia, who is the patron saint of eyes, as her eyes were put out as part of her martyrdom.

Outside the cathedral, the square is enclosed by elegant classical style buildings, but it looks kind of bare and empty, as if it could do with a street market or a demo to bring it to life.

The island is now connected by several bridges to the modern city of Siracusa and isn’t just a museum and monuments area: there are shops, hotels and dwellings. I do like these typical Italian houses with typical lines of washing. I bet even Berlusconi hangs his smalls out to dry on the balcony of his luxury penthouse.

Now back on the tourist trail, to the Fountain of Arethusa, they say the most romantic spot on the island. It is a fresh water spring built by the Greeks and named after the nymph Arethusa who, according to legend, was transformed into this spring by the goddess Artemis. What a waste of a good nymph! Obviously she had a far-reaching reputation for purity as Nelson took on his fresh water from here before the Battle of the Nile.

After a mediocre tourist snack at the café opposite the fountain (now what else would we be expecting) we left by the 15^th century Porta Marina, the ancient entrance gate from the town to the port. 15^th century actually doesn’t seem that old after going back to the island’s Greek roots.

There must be few places with a continuously recorded history going back 2,700 years, so our visit was an interesting experience. Will the planet’s inhabitants be similarly entranced, in 2,700 years’ time, when the scooters in the foreground have been dredged up from the silt in the harbour and are on public display?

29th Dec: A Walk in Cava Grande Gorge

The Cava Grande Natural Reserve starts two miles from the campsite, where the Cassibile River flows into the sea. At this point the terrain is fairly flat, but the canyon walls build as the Reserve follows the river back into the hills. It’s a good dirt track to start, with scrub vegetation on either side interspersed with orange and lemon groves. The path follows roughly the course of the river

 

It’s a great habitat for wildlife, but the birds flit past too quickly to photograph, so you’ll have to make do with a large green lizard and an unidentified butterfly.

As the hills start to rise on either side, we notice lots of doors and windows cut into rocks far up on the slopes on the opposite side of the river. Later the internet  reveals these to be cave dwellings which were occupied from BC times up to the last century. The info’s pretty vague so I don’t know any more than that. You’ll have to supply your own Flintstones images for life way back when in Cavagrande Rock Village.

We pass olive trees, as well as the oranges and lemons, and one of these presents a most unusual gnarled shape of three trunks growing out of the one base. It’s obviously very old and worth a photo.

Moving on up the valley we come across an abandoned mill outside which we ate our packed lunch. The interior looks like it could spring back into life straight away if you knew how to operate it and knew what you were supposed to be milling. The valley has only the olives, oranges and lemons so maybe it’s a marmalade mill.

 The dirt track merges with a partly tarmacked road leading to a disused hydroelectric generating complex; thereafter it peters out into a barely traceable hillside path. We follow the path for a while to get a view of the steepening valley, as the photo shows, with one of the derelict hydroelec buildings on the valley floor.

The cliffs here are about 1,500 feet high and carry on for a further 5 miles. This further on part is reached from a different access point that involves descending 800 feet to the river before starting to explore, and then 800 feet back up at the end.  We’ll stick with this side, thanks.

It’s easy to dismiss more modern structures in favour of ancient buildings. On our return, I was struck by how harmoniously this railway bridge fitted in to the Reserve, with its elegant arches spanning the river. We also went under the recent motorway bridge on the way back, a real slab which I won’t be reproducing!

The Reserve was unobtrusively managed, so no obvious signs of intervention: in fact no signs at all, so you didn’t get any info as you went round or on which paths to take. But all part of the charm and, really, a smashing day out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 



Arrival in Sicily

We are on the mainland looking across the 8 miles of the Straights of Messina to Sicily. Our crossing is flat calm and takes less than half an hour. You can see our caravan in with the lorries. There are railway tracks laid on the floor of the ship for the transportation of trains across. A bridge has been debated for years as the channel is only 8 miles wide and preliminary works were even started but have since been suspended (indefinitely). I wonder who owns the ferry company?

 The ferry docks in Messina, and it takes us half an hour to negotiate the chaotic streets of the town to get onto the motorway less than 3 miles from the port. We have become accustomed to the cut-and-thrust of Italian driving and double parking, but this is something else. Here we have triple parking and vehicles weaving about dodgem style. That’s fine for the numerous scooters and Fiat 500’s, but a car and caravan rig is a bit limiting. 

But soon we are happily trundling along on the motorway, and pull in to the services to eat our lunchtime sandwiches. The services car park seems to be covered in small coal! Has a lorry shed its load?

 

 The answer, of course, lies immediately opposite the car park; it’s volcanic ash from Mount Etna, the most active volcano in Europe. I recalled hearing on the news 3 weeks previously that the motorway had been closed for a few hours due to a small eruption. Etna looks suitably majestic and menacing at the same time, the upper reaches of its lofty 10,900 feet being covered in snow at this time of the year.

We drove past the fuel pumps as we left the services and I thought, hmm, I wouldn’t be first in the queue to work at a petrol station opposite an active volcano.

Our first campsite here in Sicily is 60 miles farther south from Etna, in the south eastern corner, near the town of Avola. The last 400 yards from the main road into the site is the narrowest I’ve ever encountered, with a few dog-leg bends thrown in for good measure. Thank goodness we didn’t meet anything coming towards us. But the site itself is very pleasant, and right next to the beach. This is it on a brisk day, but on many days we have sat out comfortably in the sun in shirt sleeves. Big coats on when the sun goes down.

So we’ve really chilled out since our arrival: hence the delay in posting this blog, plus an intermittent wifi connection  A further reason is my cracked rib. I tripped backwards into a drainage channel on our first day here that resulted later in a visit to the local hospital on Christmas Eve.  The treatment there was very efficient once we got accepted into the system; first we had to gatecrash a mini Christmas party to get at the A & E staff on duty. X-rays showed a small cracked rib; nothing to worry about, but light duties for a while. The ascent of Etna will have to wait!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Mon Dec 16th: Pompeii

At the time of its destruction in 79 AD, Pompeii had a population of around 20,000, about the same size as Huntingdon. It contained the full facilities of a prosperous town of those days, many more than in smaller, residential Herculaneum.

The forum, a large open rectangle, was the centre of civic life, where events and ceremonies would be held. It was flanked by markets, temples and administrative buildings. This is the forum, with Vesuvius looming in the background.

There were bakeries here as well as fast food shops. This intact bakers’ oven is exactly the same as today’s pizza oven, being heated by a wood fire from beneath. Even the fancy brickwork looks modern. You can almost smell fresh ciabatta coming from the oven!

Moving on to other facilities, Pompeii has one of the best preserved amphitheatres anywhere. It predates the Coliseum in Rome by about 100 years. Its large 20,000 capacity played host to gladiator contests and games where the audience would be supporting one side or the other like a modern football match. And, as in the odd football match, feelings ran so high that in 59 AD a major riot broke out between rival fans resulting in the authorities closing the stadium for 10 years. Football hooligans, you have been warned!

The theatre seems somewhat tame after the amphitheatre, but it was very popular and in fact there were two. This is the smaller one, holding about 1500 people. Jane’s the small dot sitting to the left of the far entrance, nursing a numb, cold bum as she forgot to bring her cushion for the performance.

We now come to the delicate matter of more personal facilities provided. The photo below is of one of the cubicles in the town brothel. That is a stone bed, so even with some generous padding you’d need to be desperate to avail yourself of the services there.

The premises still bear signs of appropriate decoration. This is an example of one of the less explicit tableaux adorning the walls. Pursuing the theme of desperation, you’d need to be at the end of your tether to be leapt on by the masculine-looking floozie in the illustration, all whilst lying on a stone bed!

Now to the authority dealing with the seedy side: the Courts of Justice. Roman law is the basis of many European judicial systems, including ours, so we would have recognised the prosecution and defence arguing their case, and then deliberation by a judge to reach a verdict. Not sure if a special sitting was convened to dispense ASBO’s to the amphitheatre rioters.

The all-powerful might of Justice is everywhere underlined by solemn ceremony and magnificent buildings. Here is no exception. The column stumps in the photo would have supported a large roof to shelter the litigants. The judges’ platform is the more intact rear part. The building was then all faced in imitation marble.

Some of the dwellings still retained magnificent original wall decorations (no, I don’t just mean the brothel). This villa just outside the town walls was especially well preserved. It’s a bit overbearing for my taste though: I’m a plain magnolia man.

The levels of sophistication are quite astounding. The bath complexes, of which there were several, had underfloor and cavity wall heating. A break in the wall clearly shows the two skins with the gap for heat circulation.

Finally, the streets: these were fully block paved, with pavements on either side. In fact, the same type of lava block is used to surface many regular streets in southern Italy now. These are very bumpy to drive over, especially when towing then caravan, and make traffic calming measures unnecessary as when exceeding 30 mph your wheels fall off. Some Pompeii  lava blocks show grooves worn by carts, as can be seen in the photo.

Pompeii was a fascinating demonstration of the variety and sophistication of life in those days. There was more to see than could be covered in a day: you could spend a lifetime studying the details.