Sicily

The driver from Tours by Locals pulled up in a black limo. He rolled down his window, gave us a head nod, carefully looked all around, and then rolled his window back up.

                   From out of nowhere we heard the sound of someone lightly playing the violin……. one of the rear windows lowered about half way, and an old man in the back seat motioned us over…..

                   He slowly kept motioning for us to come closer. When we were right beside the window, he spoke in a low marbly voice……

                   “I’ma gonna make you-ana offa you can’t refuse.”

          The violin began to get louder and soon the orchestra joined in as the opening credits rolled……    

That was the way that our tour of Sicily started.

          Yes, you can get a Godfather movie location Tour, but that is not why we were there!  We were there to see this wonderful island and to taste some of the food and as much of their wines as we possibly could. Our driver and guide, Mario, was as pleasant as they come and proceeded to do just that!

          Mario was right on time, (they always are) waiting for us when we pulled into the port of Catania which is situated on the eastern coastline of this Italian island.

          Sicily is triangularly shaped and lies at the “toe” of the “boot” of Italy, akin to a football ready to be kicked.  Sicily is the largest and most populous of all the Mediterranean islands and is one of only five Italian Autonomous Regions, which gives it specially granted powers to have limited legislative control over itself, similar to a State in the US, but less than an independent country. This was done to protect some local customs and languages in an effort to thwart possible Independence Movements and the like, after WWII. By now you are all experts on the various old cultures and ancient peoples that transited this region of the world over the centuries, so they thankfully will remain unnamed here, and there will be no Quiz! You can almost throw a rock from Malta to this island so it stands to reason that those occupying forces of history-shaping entities would be similar. Let’s leave it at that!

          But…… our first destination for the day was the little citadel-like, promontory-dwelling hamlet of Castelmola. For the following I am not going to apologize because we just can’t get enough of old medieval stonework-based villages, so, I hope that you enjoy seeing them also!

It seems that wherever we go now, the vestiges of those ancient times come sailing forth and end up front and center of any travel plans that we, a guide, or even Princess Tours, has to offer!

Our aptly named driver, Mario, must have some Formula One Racing driving experience as exhibited by his deft auto maneuvering while traveling up these impossibly narrow and winding two-way (!) roads that lead to some of these little cities!

Today Castelmola is not home to the guardians of the realm, but to the guardians of contemporary arts as it is now a definite destination for crafts peoples and artists. We were there early in the morning which made walking around quite the pleasure even though not all of the shops, galleries, and studios were open yet.

Mario outdid his upwards performance with his downward spiral-type rollercoaster drive down from the summits to the lowlands below on our way to the nearby city of Taormina which pretty much lies at Castelmola’s base. This old pre-Roman city is much larger than our previous destination and required Mario to drop us off at one side of town so that we could walk through the old city on foot. This was good because on foot was the only way to go as the entire area is pedestrian only.

The cappuccino enthusiasts of our little group were gathering their tastebuds about them in anticipation of the finding of that idyllic pasticceria. This was not a problem as they were weed-like and were everywhere!

Our spot just happened to be on a beautiful piazza with two guys, suitably dressed, playing, and singing the Italian Standards! I do not drink coffee or cappuccino so my transition to the “Ultimate Ethnic lmmersion Level” was not complete yet, but when these guys broke into Volare’ ….. well, let’s just say that Dino and Frank could not have done it better!

But wait! It does gets better!

Super Mario picked us up at the opposite end of the town right on schedule.

“Schedule for what , Don?”

Lunch of course!

Not just any lunch mind you…. This lunch was an Agratourismo affair at a local vineyard and restaurante which obviously featured their wines paired with the onslaught of gastro-courses, (five in total) that were planned for us!

Mario kept checking on our table like a mother hen making sure that her chicks were satiated and happy.

          We were….. both!

Mario rolled us back out of the winery and into his van in time to get us back to the ship before the Captain yanked the anchor and left us.

          Something tells me that we would have been happy to stay.