We were a little surprised by the punctuality
of the cleaners knocking at the door at 10am on the very dot. Their arrival
sent us haste fully fleeing from the lovely accommodation we had enjoyed for a
week in Modica. Fortunately Chris could now stand, he had been very unwell the
previous day. So once again we made multiple trips lugging our car load
full of gear over the cobble lanes, up and down wonky steps to then be squashed
into the bursting boot of the Land rover discovery.
The neighbours looked on. Three very curious
young children just opposite us that had called to us numerous times on our
stay now sat in the doorstep watching us. They appeared to be especially
fascinated that Chris was carrying Lachlan who was still suffering from his
injured foot.
Most of a day was spent in the car travelling
from Modica to a spot in the countryside of Raffadali, a commune 10km northwest
of Agrigento. This was where we were to spend our next week in Sicily.
It was a fascinating drive passing through
the rocky arid landscape which contrasted with flat fertile valleys, full of
greenhouses. I presumed this was where some of the fabulous food we had been eating
was produced. I had never seen such a large scale concentration of outdoor
greenhouses, lots of different styles but mostly quite low semi-circles covered
in a white sheet materials with entrances on both ends and aeration holes along
the sides. Three-quarters of Sicily’s land is used for agriculture. Huge solar
panel setups covered the hillsides.
We u-turned a couple of times to try and
catch some sites, but they didn’t eventuate. Somewhere was the ‘Valley of the
Temples’ we had heard and read about, but where? While discussing its
whereabouts with Chris we rounded a bend to see the most incredible exposed
view, ruined temples dramatically situated on a ridgeline ahead – wow! It
occurred to us that the term “valley” was a misnomer, the ruins of the seven ancient
Greek temples being nestled amongst the olive trees high on a ridge just south
of the modern city of Agrigento.
Eagerly we drove up the hill to sadly
discover there was no-where to stop of park, we shouldn’t have been surprised. At
1300 hectares, the archaeological park and landscape of the Valley of the
Temples is the largest archaeological site in the world and one of the most
popular attractions in Sicily. I consulted my kindle online ‘fodors’ Italy
book(which had been extremely useful), to read that we must park at the bottom
of the hill and walk or taxi up and then spend at least 3 hours at the site too.
We would revisit again tomorrow, it was not really a quick pit stop.
Trying to then get to the small town where we
were to meet Tarek, the manager, was a mission – strangely all the main roads were
closed – just barricaded off. It took a very long time to find probably the
only possible route around Agrigento.
Almost at our destination we got the wave
over signal from two Italian police officers standing on the side of the
street. A little surprised, this was the first time we had been stopped
anywhere, we pulled over and awaited instructions. “Documents and Ownership
papers please”. Opps, we had discovered from our border crossing in Morocco that
we didn’t have the ownership documents (just an initial receipt). I nervously
searched for a digital copy of this on my phone, but by the time I had done
this the police officer’s discussion had changed to the topic of gelato. It was
a most amusing scene, two police officers peering in at us with full-on dress (hats,
badges, tight blue shirts …) and huge wide grins on their faces. “We must try pistachio
and pecorino, flavours from ‘Le Cuspidi’, the gelato shop in Raffadali, the
best in Sicily’”, was deciphered from their English-Italian dialogue. A little
‘Police Academy’, they were certainly not the intimating force I had imagined,
but this is Sicily and people constantly surprised me here, they had so much
interest and time for you. Not worried about our lack of documents we were ‘fare
welled’, a rather positive and humorous experience.
Tarek meet us at the Q8 petrol station in a
rather beaten up French licence plated car. Speaking a little English, French,
Italian and Arabic we followed him by car out of the town and through the
countryside till we eventually turned down a very narrow lane to our
wonderful destination for the next week. The lack of signs made ‘leading’
mandatory. ‘Villa Mozaic’ was located high on a rocky hill overlooking the ups
and downs of the landscape. A beautiful 16x3m pool sat near the cliff edge.
Tarek showed us around. The house while architecturally a little strange
had been decorated beautifully inside by Tarek in modern Balinese style. This
was his business, interiors and rental management. The art, painting and
furniture were beautiful, hence the large bond required. We were further
delighted by the complimentary food and Barbera wine supplied, even soda for
the children – such a lovely welcome.
The following morning we headed off again for the Valley of Temples, this time we located one of the carpark. The carpark stalls, impossible to avoid, managed to sell us sunhats for what was now quite a warm sunny day, maybe 24C.
We stood patiently in the queue for tickets,
‘Sicilian time’ applied at this basically unattended ticket booth. The American
tourists in front of us didn’t remain so patient and probably demonstrated
unacceptable impatience. The boys found this all quite amusing, we were now
fully immersed into go-slow time.
What lay ahead of us was the remains of seven
ancient Doric Greek temples from the 5th and 6th
centuries BC. The best preserved of these was the
Temple of Concordia. It is ranked amongst the most notable edifices of the Greek civilization existing today. The perfect conservation of this temple
was mainly due to its transformation into a church in the middle ages. It was
almost entirely intact, only its roof was missing.
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| Temple of Concordia |
We didn’t get too far without a stop for Gelato. Choices included ricotta (cannoli mix) , pistachio, pistachio and almond mixture and fortunately lemon granite, Lachlan would have been unimpressed otherwise. Fortunate too, was that Lachlan managed to walk the majority of our exploration. Chris’s back took a sigh of relief.
We were grateful for the lack of tourists and
heat during the off season. The final day of May made for a peaceful and
comfortable walk up and down the ridgeline exploring ruins and enjoying the
views.
A slightly too cool pool awaited back at the
villa as did the unexpected surprise of folded washing with another load on
too. Tarek had come by and spoilt us again.
The following morning Tarek popped in and offered to take one of us for a navigation and supply mission around the local town of Raffadeli. Off I went, rather amused by the state of his car. No seatbelt, ‘no worry’ in Sicily he told me as I tried to fasten the non-existent belt. He clutched his broken gearstick and with all windows down (I wondered if they were broken too) off we zoomed. A bit wild, but quite the fun ride. First stop bread, second stop fruit and veges (was great to have some insider info, choose the fresh garlic and onions this time, choose some Sicilian varieties too, Tarek kept passing me things to eat “It is good to try”, he said in French). “Look, notice what the locals are buying”, Tarek said as he turned my gaze to the tied bunched of onions that the locals were walking out with. “They have just been pulled from the ground and are sweet and delicious”. As was the massive fresh garlic bulbs, tied in a bunch with wet earth still clinging to its roots. Prices were very reasonable, more so then the mainland.
Third stop ice cream at the amazing Le
Cuspido (first gelato maker in Sicily), where I greedily gobbled perhaps the
best gelato (chocolate and pistachio) I have ever had. I watched as people choose
the brioches lathered high with gelato– too much for me. As much as I loved
brioche I couldn’t risk filling up on it at the risk of decreasing my gelato
consumption. I was to return here a few days later with the boys who were
equally impressed.
Lastly the supermarket (on Tarek’s request my
chicken drumsticks where butchered off the whole chicken, not the already
butchered ones which were apparently ‘inferior’).
Quite a different level of service, it all took
time though so patience was required, seems patience wasn’t required for the
roads though!
I did feel rather odd and unsure of what was
really happening on this shopping/orientation trip. Tarek ‘waited’ on me with huge
kindness and patience. It was quite hard to know what to make of all this
niceness. But as Tarek said, well in my deciphering of his French and more
poetically, ‘I do not wish to just take your money for staying but to offer you
service’.
That evening I could confirm that the onions
and garlic were very very sweet and delicious.
The following morning he popped in again with
‘Fruits des bois’ that he had just picked, mounded decoratively on leaves on a
plate. They were delicious, three colours of boysenberry-like fruit (white,
purple, red) but tasting sweeter and milder. “Very good added to yogurt”, Tarek
suggested, as he took his right fingers to his lips and formed a blown kiss to
signify that it was fabulous.
Armed with a whole lot of possibilities for
adventure (mainly supplied by Tarek who emailed me pdfs and handed me a pile of
guidebooks) we headed off to Torre Salsa. The
beach of Torre Salsa is part of the Regional Natural Reserve, managed directly
by the WWF, covering more than 750 hectares.
Having no idea what it was about we headed off
with our phone map leading us. We spotted a turn off and followed other people
that looked like they were heading the same way. They stopped in front of us
and decided to turn back. We ventured on to find ourselves in no-man’s land, we
turned back too. OK, we thought, let’s try the no-fail option and head for the
Bovo Marina (large beach, reserve area). Off we went in the wrong direction and
as we turned back on ourselves (navigating around a couple of snakes sunning
themselves on the road) we spotted a different sign for ‘Torre Salsa’ so
decided to give it a go, this time following another car that looked like it
knew more than the last. The Land rover was pretty happy on the rugged dirt road
passing through bog and water ways. We passed the first car we followed again
they had stopped again, we went on again, why? We finally reached a probable
carpark where we stopped and walked a little further through a track to the
beautiful secluded beach. Still unknown to many, and obviously difficult to
navigate to, we now enjoyed a mostly deserted beautiful spot, there were only a
handful of people scattered across it.
A visit to Scala dei Turchi on the coast of
Realmonte, proved far more remarkable than expected. Here Chris had what he
described as his most incredible swim ever, swimming in the Mediterranean Sea
around the “Stair of the Turks”.
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| Scala dei Turchi |
It was quite the sight, a white rocky cliff
of Marl, sculpturally eroded into a staircase, dramatically contrasting with
the blues and greens of the Mediterranean Sea. We accessed this from one of the
sandy beaches which itself wasn’t very impressive. But the cliffs themselves were
spectacular, totally unique, I see why some people review this as their best
experience in Sicily.
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| Scala dei Turchi |
It was nice to have slowed down for a week in this quiet beautiful spot, as things were about to pick up pace again.
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| ‘Villa Mozaic’, Raffadali |
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