Catania - Point of Departure

From the top of the crater of Mt. Etna, we headed directly to the city center of Catania for our final stop in Italy for this trip. With surprisingly terrible traffic, we eventually gave up, returned our car at the airport and had a very jovial taxi-driver drop us off at the subpar hotel where we were to spend the final night.

Catania is an interesting place--with the very beautiful existing side-by-side with the dirty and dire. The baroque architecture is surprising in its magnificence--albeit nearly universally encrusted below a layer of black grime. It is, however, a college town, with an unhidden youthfulness and exuberance. It is said that Catania is best enjoyed at night, where that black layer of shot reflects the abundant city lights, allowing the features of the buildings carefully carved by renaissance craftsmen to dance against the starfield on a clear night.

During a walk about town, we spotted a restaurant near the seafood market. That night, we traced our steps back for dinner. Arriving at 8PM, we were the first customers of the evening--and about the only ones there until nearly 10PM. If I had to list the 10 best meals I ever ate in my life--I may have to list this one. Pasta a la Lampedusa...a treasure trove of seafood plucked from local waters over perfectly cooked pasta. Simple, unforgettable, impossible to reproduce elsewhere.

The other pleasure of this meal was to watch fellow diners trickle in. As we were at the end of a long trip--and without the availability of our finest attire--it was a good thing we were the first diners of the evening. Shortly before 10PM, other diners started to arrive--and each were impeccably dressed for the Friday night out. Soon, we were surrounded by gracefully attired ladies and gentlemen in the fashions of the day. In one of the few places in Italy that didn’t try to talk us out of paying by credit card, we slipped out after 10PM--with people still walking in the door.

We found our way to a cafe in the city’s main plaza, where the ancient Elephant of the Piazza Duomo could have a good look at us. We saw that a lot of the folks were enjoying a bitter citrus cocktail--a local favorite--and we joined in. True to the saying, Catania shimmers in splendor at night.

The next morning, we returned to the same cafe--for coffee and two last cannoli! From there, we left Italy from Catania’s tiny, but bustling airport. Fran left for home, while I hopped on a short flight to Madrid for a short visit with friends before returning to the US.

Mt. Etna - A Long Walk into Europe's Largest Volcano

With a day left in the Italian leg of our trip, we wanted to be near Catania--and somewhat close to the airport. After evaluating the options on the eastern side of the island--none of them bad--we decided to visit the top of Mt. Etna. As long as the volcano didn’t blow--it could be a fun way to end the trip.

We were able to book rooms in the famed Sapienza Refuge, which sits 1900 meters (about a mile and a quarter) above see level, and provides access to the trails that wind up to the top of the western crater. While palm trees are common in nearby Catania, Mt. Etna is so tall (rising 3,350 m (11,000 ft), it is a common skiing destination in the winter. In mid-October, however, it is a popular place for hiking--with trails winding up to the top of one of the major craters.

Having experienced major lava flows throughout recorded history--as recently as 2011, when the Sapienza Refuge just barely escaped destruction by a lava flow--the entire landscape at the elevation of the lodge up to the crater is dried lava. There are no trees or any other vegetation. From the lodge, we jumped on a lift, which carried us 2500 meters to a series of trails that--after about 2 hours and another 500 meters, arrives at the crater (the highest point hikers are permitted to ascend without special permit). Well worth the effort!

A good tune for walking up a volcano...

Taormina - Ancient Jewell of Sicily's Eastern Shore

A short way south from Messina is the storied town of Taormina, which traces its heritage to the Greeks and later the Romans--with wonderful remnants of both cultures.

For all my Sicilian-American friends, I want it to be noted that the very first thing I did upon stepping on the island, after parking the car and walking into town, was to find a bakery with the best looking cannoli--with my cousin’s whole-hearted support. Like picking a lobster from a tank, we studied the beautiful tray of subjects and then pointed to the cannoli we wanted, paid about a 10th of what we would have been willing, and stepped outside to enjoy cannoli from the motherland--literally--in the shadows of a Greek theater from the Seventh Century B.C. We could have been standing next to a strip mine for all it mattered--the cannoli were indescribably good--a class above the world-class cannoli available on St. Louis’s Hill or Pittsburgh’s Strip. (We think the secret is the quality of the fresh ricotta cheese that is readily available in Sicily.)

Across the Strait of Messina

After such a nice visit with cousin Francesco and family, it was a sad moment to have to ride on to port at Villa San Giovanni, which is the closest point between the continent of Europe and the island of Sicily, and, as such, one of Europe’s busiest ferry ports. But with our flight leaving Italy in just two days, we had to make it closer to our point of departure in Catania.

For this boy from Missouri, I am used crossing mighty waterways--including the great Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The Strait of Messina is nothing like it--wide, deep and windy--and, oh yeah--very close to one of the worlds largest volcanoes. Notwithstanding, for years, the government has toyed with the idea of building a bridge to connect Sicily to the mainland. If that bridge were to be built, it would connect Villa San Giovanni  to the northern edge of Messina in Sicily--and, not to mention, would become one of the most incredible engineering feats of humanity. However, as the Italian economy struggles to pick up pace after a near collapse and deep recession that followed, those plans have been shelved for at least another generation.

As has been the manner since the times of the Greeks and Romans, the way to get to Sicily is to get on a boat. With impressive efficiency, we drove the car onto the boat, and after a visit to the shopping mall-like interior deck of the ferry, drove off about 30 minutes later onto the island of Sicily and the meandering streets of Messina.

Reggio Calabria - The City at the Italy's Toe

If Italy is a boot, our next stop was to the tip of the toe, to visit my grandmother’s first cousin, Francesco, and his family near the regional capital of Reggio Calabria. This short visit with his family would be the highlight of the trip for me.

I had passed through town 18 years ago as a kid in college. My grandmother had given me the name of her aunt and uncle, and I just strolled into town unannounced. Somehow--and to this day it amazes me--I was able to find that aunt and uncle. I then had the pleasure of spending the next couple days with my great-great Uncle Pete and his family, including his son, Francesco and his family.

Sadly, Uncle Pete is no longer with us, but, having made it to 98 years, he set a nice high bar for the younger members of the family. I found cousin Francesco, and his son and daughters--all doing well. In fact, the little 10-year-old boy who showed me around the town, grew up to be quite a soccer standout, including in his resume a season in Serie A--Italy’s top professional soccer/football division. Check out this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7LfnVqsOng

It was fun to walk around town with a local celeb and get to know his wife, who, we learned, is a rising star in regional politics and in the home stretch of her political campaign (which, she later won--Forza Italia.)

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Side note: Congratulations is due to this couple. Just yesterday (as I post this on 3/5), their first child was born. Read all about it here:

http://www.strettoweb.com/2015/03/reggio-fiocco-rosa-a-palazzo-san-giorgio-e-nata-la-figlia-di-mary-caracciolo/253100/

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The next day, we had a fun car ride with Francesco, who took us to the homesteads where his grandparents used to farm (that would my 2x-great-grandparents). Those tiny farms sit exist among Reggio Calabria storied bergamot orchards--which only grows in a few places on the planet, this being the area of highest quality. Bergamot has been cultivated for centuries to provide the oils that give flavor to Earl Gray tea. The local orchards are a strong point of pride for the people of the region.

We stopped at one of the Orchards owned by a friend of Francesco to get a close look at the trees. The fruit looks like a very large, very green lemon, oblong, but more rounded than a typical lemon. Francesco pulled a couple ripe fruits from the tree and sliced them open. The fragrance of a fresh bergamot fruit is incredible beyond description.

It was only as we were leaving the area that I noticed that the narrow orchards stretched upon a narrow ridge, from which, at a proper angle, we could see dry, rocky hills, which would look very much in place in Southern California, that wrap around and tower above the city of Reggio di Calabria. The tip of Sicily and its port town of Messina are visible in the distance. Even after walking the sale land, it is difficult to imagine the life of the generations of my family who worked those same fields and orchards ages ago; I do know they did not hurt for a good view.

Pizzo Calabro

We originally planned to stay in the seaside town of Pizzo Calabro out of convenience. The town has an ample selection of comfortable hotels, which, during the deep low season, are available at an exceptional value.The ancient town (and the accommodations) crushed our expectations.

Arriving at dusk, we were treated to one of the most incredible sights I have seen anywhere--ever. From the edge of town, when the angle of the sun is just right, the incessantly smoking volcano of Stromboli, rising from the  Tyrrhenian Sea about 25 miles due west, was back lit against the setting sun, making the steam and smoke lifting from its crater glow red on the horizon.  A local lady that happened to be standing nearby told me that some on clear, dark nights, you can sometimes see a red glow of lava churning in the crater.

After a fantastic dinner and then tasting the town’s hallmark dessert (truffle encrusted ice cream), we retreated to what turned out to be the most comfortable and enjoyable hotel of our trip. The rooms were beautifully decorated boutique hotel with a bold modern design. My room had a balcony which looked onto the narrow streets, a partial ocean view and--buy fortuitous timing--a bright moon perfectly visible above. My cousin’s room had a private open-air, stone courtyard.

The next morning we were treated to a nice walk around town and the small beach and port.

Mierato - A Small Town that Wants to Keep Its Secrets

In many ways for me, driving into the small hilltop town of Mierato was like driving into a family legend. This is the town of my grandmother’s father.  When I was in college, I used to enjoy spending parts of my winter and summer breaks at my grandmother’s house in Western PA. Some times at my special request, often without, she would make one of her favorite dishes, which was Swiss chard fried with pieces of Italian bread, a grated hard cheese and an ample amount of crushed red pepper. During one of my summer visits, she got up early, cut come chard from her garden and cooked the dish for breakfast. She was well into her 80’s at the time. As we were eating, she told me that her dad, who had passed away some 50 years before, used to love having chard for breakfast--fried up the same way. She said she wanted to make it that day because she really missed him. She told me the stories that had been passed down to her about her father, who came from a well-to-do family “with olive trees” from Maierato, who wanted to come to the US for an adventure. He ended up meeting a girl from a then-bustling mill town and--despite a visit from an older brother who came from Mierato to fetch him--he never returned to Italy.

Even after building up the town in my mind to near fairy tale quality, the little town did not disappoint. The town sits atop a hill on a high plateau that rises up from the coast of the Tyrrhenian Sea just 10 miles away. The buildings--showing more signs of age than their perfectly maintained central Italian counterparts--would otherwise fit right it. To my untrained eye, the town was surprising in that it looked like a little piece of central Italy misplaced in the deep south.

We chatted with some people, but, unlike Altomonte that was eager for the world to see the hidden gem, we got the impression that Maierato was perfectly fine to keep its stunning views and picturesque streetscapes to itself.