it’s blue blue blue
After having a nice culture break in London (mmm spicy foods) and seeing lots of friends (mmm talking slang), I returned back to good old Italy, to Sicily to be exact. The “other Italy.”
It really is quite different Sicily. I think the difference was intensified for me as well because I was really missing Italy and its cities after being in relatively dreary London for a few weeks. However, my first port of call was Palermo...a city which more resembles India in some parts than the Italy I was missing.
Coincidentally I stayed with a friend I had met in India while travelling there last year. He has an apartment above an infamously chaotic market. So that location, combined with the crazy heat of the south and the odd sighting of dogs lying on the street, and I was taken back to my days of wandering the dusty markets of small Indian cities.
The cafe I had breakfast at during my stay there was classic. It had obviously been there for many many years given the state of the place. As we walked in, the man behind the bar (must be the owner) showed a faint expression of recognition to my friend who goes there every morning and grunted something in Sicilian which I guessed meant “the usual?” After a nod from my friend and a few minutes we had coffee and pastries. This cafe was truly unlike any I had been in before in Italy. It was the first time I have hesitated to check if the spoon was clean. However, from that surreally crappy (or maybe I should say authentic) place came the best damn coffee I have tasted in Italy – and that is really saying something.
The roads around this area of the city are very old and very decaying. The same applies to the buildings and one actually finds completely destroyed buildings that have been left there for years and which in other Italian cities would probably be restored tourist sites. Of course not all of Palermo is like this, however in general one gets the feeling that the history of the city is still very much alive and all around oneself.
I was fortunate enough to go with my friend and his friends TO THE SEA. I write it like that because here the sea holds some sort of crazy fascination for Italians. Definitely more so than in NZ. In many towns the most clearly signposted thing is the direction to the sea and people talk about going to the sea as a complete thing, an almost magical destination. I guess in NZ we have such relatively easy access to the sea that it’s more a normal part of life. So we went to Scopello which is known as one of the best spots on the Sicilian coast and spent 3 days swimming, fishing and boating around the coast...fantastico. The sea is just so warm and clear. To use diving speak, the viz was bottomless.
Now I have made my way to the farm I’m staying on right in the south of Sicily near the coast. All is going well so far...a good mix of interesting people here. I just need to get used to the heat, the flies and the mosquitoes.