Save Us, Emanuela

 

I am just getting back to part two of our fabulous Summer 2022 vacation now that it is Summer 2023.  In between my last post in December, and today, these things happened, in roughly this order: my mother had a bad eye infection, my father's health began to decline rapidly, my mother had vertigo, my father had a fall and was moved to a skilled nursing facility, we moved my mother into an independent living apartment at the same place where my father was, we cleared out the house, we hired a realtor and sold my parents' house, my father became extremely frail and ill and passed away. It's been a lot.  But back to reminiscing about happier times...

The photo above is of me and the savior of our Sicilian vacation, Emanuela.  After our stay in Ortigia, I had booked us a country villa overlooking the tiny ancient hill town of Pietraperzia, Sicily.  We packed up our things and had our Airbnb host's buddy drive us back to the Catania airport so Larry could rent the car he had reserved.  And then things took a turn.  On that day, at that rental car counter, the clerk decided to enforce the requirement to have an International Driver's License, which Larry did not have, and could not obtain.  There was a lot of hangry posturing on Larry's part until we removed him to a café to calm down and strategize.

Pietraperzia is an old, old fortified town - we saw it pictured on a map from the Roman Empire when we were in the Vatican.  And it is smack in the middle of Sicily.

There are no trains or buses that go there.  So I once again called our Ortigia Airbnb host, who called his friend the driver, who knew a guy, who knew another guy, who eventually showed up in a Mercedes van to drive us to our big pink villa.

Problem number one solved!  However, there were several ancient sites we wanted to visit that were an hour or so away from our villa.  When we checked in with the villa host, she said she knew a local taxi driver that could take us around.  Enter our savior, Emanuela.  

As we walked down the hill from our villa to the tiny town to get some groceries for dinner, Emanuela called me and we spoke at, not necessarily with, each other, as I speak no Italian and Emanuela's English was enthusiastic but intermediate.  We both got increasingly louder in an effort to be understood, which never helps as much as you think it is going to.  We agreed that she would pick us up the next afternoon and drive us out to the Villa Romana.

Here we are climbing back up the hill from town to our big pink box.  It was well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit for our entire stay in the middle of Sicily, and this hill was a massive slog every time we had to go to town.  BUT ... we did have this excellent view off our excellent patio.

The next day Emanuela did, indeed, show up in a van to drive us to the Villa Romana.  She even brought a surprise guest, her "huncle", who, it seemed, had to accompany us on our travels as it was his van and he didn't want to be parted from it.  Emanuela's uncle had no English at all but was a pleasant traveling companion.  Sometimes he would shyly proffer candy to whatever child was in the backseat.

As my children often point out, it is impossible to keep me from chatting with strangers, even, as it turns out, through a significant language barrier.  Emanuela and I spent many pleasant hours in the van over the next three days attempting to converse as my children rolled their collective eyes in the back of the van.  Our favorite of Emanuela's sayings was "Don't is a problem", which pretty much summed up her sunny disposition.  She was sorry that the temperature was so tall.

The Villa Romana del Casale is a huge Roman villa that dates from the 4th century AD.  It was built for a rich Roman (unclear which one) by African slaves (even more unclear which ones) and contains a staggering amount of mosaic flooring.  The complex was inhabited for many years but then was buried by a landslide in the 12th century, which is why the mosaics are still intact.  They were excavated between 1920 and 1960 and were enclosed, which makes it tolerable to tour in the Sicilian sun.

If you've ever taken an art history class (surprising no one, I am sure, I have taken three at community college), you've probably been exposed to the the mosaic of the Bikini Ladies.  And we saw it in person!!!

The mosaic depicts women athletes, a subject not often depicted in ancient art.  There are 32 other rooms full of mosaics, but I will share only one more, this mosaic dubbed "The Small Circus", which shows small boys driving unlikely teams of animals hitched to carts.

On our way back to our villa we asked to stop at an ATM machine.  Emanuela took us to Barrafranca, another tiny town.  As we parked, she said, "I, how you say.... HATE this place", which was such a surprise we all burst out laughing.  It turns out she thinks the Barrafrancans are closed-minded hicks, at least we think that's what she said.

After returning to our villa, we decided to walk to one of the few restaurants around, a country pizza place that was about a mile down a tractor path at the top of the hill where we were staying.  

Now, I have a thing for the Virgin Mary in all her forms.  I love how whenever the Catholics turned up somewhere they converted whatever goddess the locals worshipped into some form of the Virgin Mary.  I love a good shrine to a Marian apparition that was seen by schoolchildren or shepherds or dogs or whatever.  I love all the titles of Mary: Our Lady Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Our Lady of Sorrows, Our Lady Untier of Knots (a personal fav), Queen of Heaven, Queen of Apostles, etc etc.  

The Mary that they vibe with in Pietraperzia is the Madonna del Latte (Our Lady of the Milk) who is always depicted nursing baby Jesus.  As Ellen pointed out, the paintings had to have been done by someone who has never actually nursed an infant, and breasts are not nearly as flexible as depicted.  Here are two shrines to Madonna del Latte we saw on our country walk.

As we were walking, it got dark, the houses got farther apart, the howling dogs grew louder, and I became increasingly convinced I was going to fall and break my ankle.  Ellen kindly accompanied me back to the villa and made me dinner in the odd basement kitchen, almost surely designed for the staff.

When we engaged Emanuela to drive us around, I had two must-see sites in mind: the Villa Romana and Agrigento.  Emanuela added a third: Cefalú, a beach town on the north shore, and, according to Emanuela, "the place of my heart".  She showed up the next morning with a *different* huncle, but the same van, and we set off for the beach.

Emanuela loves to drive ("It is my passion to guide the car"), and loves to drive fast, but I was so happy that Larry wasn't driving us that I didn't even flinch as we whizzed through the interior of Sicily, through tunnels, around detours, as Emanuela pointed out "coos" (cows) and "balls" (bales) of hay. She asked us how much a bale of hay cost in California, and we were embarrassed to admit that we had no clue.  Emanuela was forced to slow down as we approached the town, and declared that "limited velocity is a shackle."  We all loved how clearly she expressed herself, especially given her lack of practical experience speaking English, since I think we were her first English-speaking clients.

 Cefalú was, indeed, beautiful, with clear, warm water which Emanuela described as "limpid" - a perfect description.  Here are some pictures for you to enjoy.

We got back to our villa pretty late, and the only restaurant that was still open was down the big hill from our place, and up at the very top of the big hill of Pietraperzia, next to the ruined castle.  Pietraperzia was eerily deserted as we huffed up the enormous paved hill, but when we got to the top at about 11 pm, we found all the citizenry of the town, enjoying pizza and wine on the castle ramparts as all the small children ran around and screamed.

The next morning, Emanuela stopped by with a most welcome box of pastries and some of her home-grown albaricoques (apricots) and almendras (almonds).  She came back in few hours and we piled in the van with one of the huncles and headed out to the south shore of Sicily to the town of Agrigento, "one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden age of Ancient Greece" according to Wikipedia.  It was founded in around 580 BC and there are ancient structures still standing outside the modern town in the "Valley of the Temples".

Emanuela took this nice selfie of all of us before we piled in the van.

We had an enjoyable, if hot, day, strolling through the old temples while Amy, our classics major, tried to explain things to us.  

Just when we thought we might faint from heat and thirst, we found a café tucked in among the ruins.  Bliss!  I got my favorite Sicilian snack, tiny hot dogs in fat buttered rolls, and we had some arancini, the wildly popular snack of southern Italy.

We very much enjoyed this poster for coffee(?) featuring a multi-ethnic, multi-age group of ecstatically happy people.

On our drive back, Emanuela told us about a festival they have had for centuries in Pietraperzia on Good Friday, called "Lu Signuri di li Fasci".  Emanuela tried to explain it to us, not very successfully, and the uncle in the backseat got VERY excited and spent over an hour showing pictures to Susan on his phone.  Apparently that Easter he had gotten to hold one of the linen bands, which is a big deal.

I looked it up on the internet and found this great website: https://www.lusignuridilifasci.it/

Roughly, the ceremony consists of carrying around a very old cross mounted on a sort of wheel on which the faithful tie long linen bands.  The linen bands represent promises, or maybe babies?  You can perhaps imagine how confusing it was having this explained in excited but rudimentary English.  The whole thing is lifted up and paraded around the town.  Here are a few photos from the web.

We had a lovely final evening on our giant patio, watching the sunset and the controlled burn of the grain fields between our villa and Pietraperzia.  

Emanuela stopped by with some arancini and we all took pictures of each other.

We had to say goodbye to Emanuela and our big pink villa, as we were leaving the next morning to drive to Catania and then fly to Rome.  Emanuela couldn't drive us, sadly, as there was no room in her van for our luggage.  We had to arrange for an airport driver from Catania to come get us, and we were extremely grateful when he showed up in the morning.

Emanuela and I follow each other on Instragram, so if you're reading this, Emanuela, thanks again for saving our trip!  We love you!!

Okay!  I finally wrote something after an extremely long dry spell.  I have to finish writing up last summer's trip to Italy, because we just got back from another family trip to Spain, and I have to write about that, too!!!!  I'm very luck that we got not one, but two, European trips with the family.