We met with our hosts for a walk to our favored Gelati shop in the piazza across from the city palace this afternoon. Yes, palace. The piazza, San Giovanni Square forms the center of a town of a hundred bells. I can hear most of them too. On one side of the piazza is the Cathedral – il Duomo, so named because it is the center of the religious diocese in any geographic area, and because the bishop is sited here It is usually the top – the most ornate – the most important. It is lovely, and very fancy internally, Roman cross style, and is the top, if over just a bit. Everyone here seems to know the artists who painted and sculpted to create these domed and arched places of worship.
I put a few coins into a cup of a penitent, who was on her knees, unmoving, in front of the church for the two hours we were there, and some red-haired lady came over. I imagine, by her volume and body language, that I was roundly chastised. It had very little effect, much like watching TV with the sound off.
Next to the duomo, sharing a walkway, and another decoratively tiled piazza (stones in alternating black lava and white marble design) in front of Saints Peter and Paul, a Basilica. Why two major churches side by side? No idea. Do they know they are in competition with each other for parishioner support? Opposite that same square is the city palace, a major, flag-flying triumph of baroque architecture built of intricately cut white stones, no doubt marble, and guarded by fearsome stone gargoyles, with scowling faces to keep intruders away. It was damaged in the 1600s by an earthquake, and restored. Block away, we passed another church – that one called Gesu and Maria, and as you know, there are several along the way to our AirB&B. I can‘t imagine what they thought, to allow such religious congestion during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Our hosts, the quiet, twinkly eyed Vito, and his wife, professoressa Carmela, were taking us to Gelati, and a stroll along Vito’s magnificent creations in architecture. Turns out, he designed the piazza, and his name is engraved in stone in front of the Basilica. He is written up in magazines, and in papers, and he designed the bank building we walked along as well. He says that architecture is a great responsibility. I see him as an artist, and as he showed us – an artist-architect is what he is. He has designed so much of this place; lights (illumination) are a particular love, and the house has chandeliers from Murano, sculpture, and posters too, all by hand before computers did much of the work. I told him he is like Gaudi.
After a street-side dinner, we went for a Granite, comparison – shopping for the definitive answer of whether one shop’s quality or flavor was better than another. We walked over, and the waiter, who knew everyone but us, had a few words with Lew, and I heard him say ‘American.’ He looked at me and said “American or Italian.” I smiled with pleasure – he knew we were Italian, John and I for sure. We were practically locals after 10 days, too. Feeling good, welcomed, and ‘in’, I assured him that yes, he was smart — we were Italian. I bragged a bit to Lew, and felt proud. We were recognized. Oh how the ego lives on.
The coffee arrived. Early in this trip, we had realized that there often was a mix up between what we thought we had ordered, and what actually we had ordered, much less wondering what food had arrived, even when we thought that we had been clear. Our course was clear, our commitment was that if it arrived, and wouldn’t sent it back.
We’d learned our lesson from an early fiasco, and from now on we took what was brought and learned what it was as we ate it. The waiter placed four tiny cups in front of us, and three desert glasses filled with the wonderful granite. We stared at the cups. We thought that we’d be getting our usual one decaf, one expresso, and two cappuccini.
American, or Italian — the dime dropped. He was referring to our coffee, not our nationality. He brought us Italian coffee. Not for several minutes could we stop laughing at ourselves. Tears ran down our cheeks. We weren’t the center of his curiosity – our coffee order was! The granite was declared good enough for a second test to be certain. The expresso? More like burned cork, concentrated.
I have talked about this place we are staying quite a lot. It was a ‘noble villa.’ The owners took us on a tour of their home last night, including Vito’s studio is housed on one side of the villa, which has center stairs. It’s some 6 or 7 rooms, with 12 foot ceilings, murals on the ceilings, or those palace-style decorations around the top and painted flowers all over the mounded plaster. It is palatial, and as he has retired they have turned part of it into a rather nice apartment with two bathrooms, letting the rent money help out so that the taxes don’t eat them alive each year. They are a well known couple, with 40+ years in this town, and I am sure that not only taxes gobble up money, but repairs. Big houses, old houses – they take a lot of tender, expensive maintenance.
They also built an apartment near their personal rooms; a gorgeous one – for their son, who prefers to live in his own house. Says la mama, “I always tried to give him a taste of nice things.” She totally succeeded. So far as we can tell, there are four apartments in here. One is theirs, large and extravagantly artistic. Uniquely, we are in the historic center of a great stone and concrete city, on one of the oldest streets and can hear the car noises, neighbor chatter and dogs, but we are sitting in an outside garden of either green and lush landscape, or a covered patio kitchen with the sun shining onto the middle of the area. For scale, let me just say that this one outside patio area of the house, not counting the balcony, has space maybe 50 feet by 50 covered in aqua green and blue tiles. It’s been a fun experience.
Today, our hosts treated us with a little tour, and granite (pistachio and almond together) in a cup, with brioche (the only way to eat it Sicilian style, says Carmela) filling in with some of their life and history, success and sadness woven together into a thick braid. It was most generous of them to share their stories with us, and we are honored to be seeing their town through their experiences. She is a historian by training, and a dynamic woman by nature, who is always in charge by sheer force of personality. We just follow. I believe that they must be in their 80s, but not sure – I haven’t the nerve to ask.
The legend of Acireale says that the young shepherd Aci fell in love with the beautiful nymph Galatea. The jealousy of the Cyclops Polypheme, who was also in love with Galatea, led to the killing of the poor young man under a big stone. The blood of the poor shepherd formed a river called Akis; most of it flows under the ground and comes out of the soil near Santa Maria la Scala.
We went to Santa Maria la Scala, both at the bottom and top of a sinuous walkway that completes a passage between the sea to the town above. The city built this some time ago, when corsairs were plundering the coast and stealing women and children who were down at the sea washing their clothes. As steep as this route is – it seems a harsh way to get your whities tidy, but then, walking far was a more normal life mode.
There is a garden overlook over the sea, the Villa Belvedere Gardens which was designed in part – a beautiful fountain – by Vito. He had photos, but the fountain has been destroyed, and Vito nearly cried recalling his loss. He showed us photos of him as a young man with his family in front of an exquisite fountain with swans. We cried too. The deal, like so many we have been told, is that the money has disappeared, and they don’t know how to get it back; the city doesn’t have the incentive to work on the integrity or maintenance of the gardens. Wagner, and Goethe visited once upon a time, and spoke of this balcony overlooking the sea in its splendor days. We drowned our sadness in granite, refreshing ourselves in sweets.
The Granite competition is on, with no clear winner. More research perhaps.
Lew backed us up out of a dead-end alley with an inch between the car and the walls on either side. I had to look at my shoes. I’ve never gotten used to the driving, or the narrow street size, but our time is creeping into the remaining hours. We leave for Barcelona tomorrow. Then Munich – to home.