ERCOLANO / HERCULANEUM
After going back to the room and packing my things I once again walked to the train station and took the train to Naples, where I was going to transfer to the local train to Ercolano. Fortunately, I took the precaution to send a message to my B&B there, asking them if it would be OK for me to leave my backpack there while I visited the Parco Archeologico. “Yes, of course”, came the response as I was waiting for the second train. “How are you getting here”. “I am taking the train”. “Better if you take the Circum-Vesuviana metro. It will drop you off at Ercolano Scavi, which is a lot closer to us”. Ah, nothing like having local intelligence! Truth be told I was afraid of a half hour walk under the heavy rain, but by taking the metro I was going to shorten my walk to less than 10 minutes. Still, 10 minutes in a downpour was a little daunting. But then the gods of Ercolano smiled on me, and just as I was arriving at the station it stopped raining! I walked under a very light drizzle to my B&B, left my heavy pack behind, and well shielded by a poncho and an umbrella headed for the scavi (Italian for “excavations”).
The Parco Archeologico is much smaller than that of Pompeii, maybe 3 by 3 blocks, but is also very beautiful. This site was discovered in the early 1700’s, even before Pompeii, but it was encased in very dense pyroclastic material and was not easy to excavate. The initial exploration was made through tunnels, many of which were likely made by looters looking for treasure. Formal excavation started in the mid 1700’s and continues to date.
Unlike Pompeii, which was choked under a heavy rain of tephra and volcanic shards, Ercolano was first “roasted” by a pyroclastic surge that charred all exposed wood and living things, and was later filled with lahar and ignimbrite deposits that later set like concrete. Protected by these hard layers the site survived the passage of time in reasonably good shape. Some 3-storey buildings remained standing, so one can get a clear idea of the vast proportions of some of the rooms. I think that is Pompeii was a lively Roman city, Ercolano was a seaside resort for the rich and famous, who built enormous villas for their weekend retreats. I was pleasantly surprised by the abundance of light blue in the walls (as opposed to the prevalent red in Pompeii) and at the quality of the wall paintings.
The seashore is now a kilometer from the site, but in 79 AD the shore was probably a couple of hundred of meters away, and many of the structures and boats there were smashed by the tsunami triggered when the pyroclastic flows entered the Bay of Naples. Not a good day for the few folks who were not charred by the initial pyroclastic surge!
VESUVIUS
Ah, Vesuvius, the poster child of a threatening volcano. I was all fired up to take the bus up to Vesuvius, and had even bought the online entrance ticket to the national park, but my hopes were dashed when the bus operator informed the waiting crowd that the National Park powers had decided to close the park for the day, on account of fierce winds and storm conditions. Lástima! ☹
NAPOLI
So I had to turn to Plan B, which was to take the Circum-Vesuviana metro back to Napoli, hop on the tourist bus, and let myself be carried along (like a volcanic island on a tectonic plate) to see the sights of a city that I had no interest on seeing. I should explain that I had no interest on seeing it because my beloved daughter had labeled it as “a dirty and trafficky city” based on her experience as a mochilera 20 years ago. It rained all day long, so the decision to take the tourist bus was a good one, and based on the two different tourist circuits available I would have to say that yes, it is a trafficky city in the old part of town, but no, it is a beautiful city once you go to the western part where you get impressively beautiful sights of the bay and cloud-covered Vesuvius.
Napoli was established by the Greeks, way back then when white thread was invented, who called the new settlement Nea Polis (new city; clearly the Greeks had no imagination when it came to naming towns). Then the Romans took over (actually, I suspect the Etruscans took over, but I have no proof for that guess), then the King of Sicily ruled over it, then the great-great grandson of the king moved the seat of the kingdom from Palermo to Napoli, and finally Garibaldi annexed the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the Kingdom of Italy and that was that.
Arghh, I forgot it was Sunday and failed to secure food for dinner (I had an excellent lunch of spaghetti and seafood). I will have to make due with an excellent piece of Parmiggiano cheese I have in my bag of tricks, and the half bottle of wine I have left from yesterday.
Tomorrow I have to twirl my thumbs in Napoli all day long, and in the afternoon I need to board the ferry for Palermo, in Sicily. Weather forecast is nor promising, so I will plan to leave my luggage in Napoli Centrale train station, and go to the National Museum to hide from the rain until 6 pm, when I can board the ferry.
Sneeze! Yesterday I got wet while moving around Napoli and now I have a cold. I see everything with hatred. But I still have to do something with myself, so I followed my plan and headed for the National Museum of Archaeology, where many pieces from Pompeii and Ercolano ended up (as well as from other Etruscan and Greek sites). Napoli was a kingdom way back then, and the king or kings were big collectors of antiquities, so they looted many of the sites just to have the floors, murals, and statues in their palace collection. It is a very nice collection to be sure, but without the archaeological context it is of very limited scientific value. By mid-afternoon I was done and went to the train station to collect my luggage. I was feeling terribly sick, so for comfort I went to Burger King and got a Double Bacon Cheeseburger. Yum!
Finally I presented myself at the ferry terminal at 6 pm, boarded at 7 pm, and promptly fell asleep in my uncomfortable chair. We are expected to sail through the night and arrive in Palermo, Sicily, at 7 am. Until then, ciao!
SICILY (briefly)
The ferry departed with at least two hours delay, so we got to Palermo two hours late, and then it took at least an hour for us to disembark. Then, contrary to what I had expected, I had to walk for nearly half an hour to the train station, so I missed the morning trains to Milazzo. Further, in my weakened state I misunderstood the agent, and instead of the 11:38 train ended taking the 13:38 train, waiting half hour for the transfer train, and ending arriving in Milazzo at 17:30. Again, I was a good half hour from the port, so in order to save time I took a taxi (way too expensive) and got to the ferry at 18:00, just to find out that the late ferry had been canceled due to heavy wind. Rats!
Then I realized that if I was in a hurry it was all an artifact of my feverish head cold, so I whipped out my cell phone, went to Booking.com, and 10 minutes later I had arranged for a convenient place to spend the night. I really needed the rest, and by mid-morning the following day I was starting to feel a lot better. With alle himmlicher Ruhe I took the 12:30 hydrofoil ferry and landed in Lipari under a sunny sky an hour later. An easy walk brought me to my sunny comfortable room, where I even have a tiny traditional balcony and kitchen privileges, and right away decided that I am going to park myself here for a week. It is the perfect place for me to make a major push in completing my book about California Geology!
Lipari is a well-known volcanic island so I will have more to say about it in later paragraphs, and the town of Lipari is itself perfect in being small but with all necessary services. I right away located the supermarket, the panificio, and inquired about the barbiero (I desperately need a haircut). I am going to enjoy very much being a local here. For starters I need to celebrate with a good dinner: risotto con minestrone and stuffed calamari are going to be a great start!
The following morning I took the hydrofoil ferry to Stromboli, a famous volcano that has been in continuous gentle eruption for nearly 2,000 years. Every half hour or so a bubble of magma bursts, sending a handful of glowing tephra into the air (you can only see that at night) and releasing a big puff of steam. I walked around the steep-sided mountain but couldn’t find the energy to walk up the steep slopes. I will be satisfied with knowing I was there and will let younger adventurers claim the summit.
When describing me getting sick in Napoli I forgot to mention that in the way to the museum I was feeling chilled and thought it would be nice to have a sweater vest of the type so popular in Europe. But they are expensive, and I would have to lug it with me for the rest of the trip. Right at that moment I went across a small market, and under a tent there was a crowd looking through piles of clothes. It was a 1-euro sale, mostly of old jeans, but I looked and right then and there found an XL flannel shirt that was no doubt a gift from my guardian angel. It looked a bit grimy, but beggars can’t be choosers, and worked great as a thin sweater between my shirt and my $6 Goodwill jacket. Nothing but the finest clothes for this boy.
Back in Lipari, on the afternoon of the second day it became clear that I had to wash clothes, and of course the first thing that needed to be washed was my 1-euro flannel shirt. OMG, that thing was filthy! It took at least a dozen of rinses, and two washes with soap, to have the water loose a suspicious ochre tinge. I can’t believe I wore it over my clean shirts for three days.
That night I had invited a young couple to dinner. They are staying at my little hotel and we had fallen into conversation the previous night. She, Robin, is from England, and he, Dan, is from Scotland and has the strongest brogue I had ever imagined (I felt bath because I had to ask him to repeat itself more than twice). They are in their late 20’s and are taking a gap year before getting serious about finding a job. Robin has just got her Psychology degree and Dan is a chef. Speaking about the good things we had eaten in our travels, we got to what we wanted to try here, and the top choice was Spaghetti alle Vongole or spaghetti with clams, so I offered to cook it for us (I had looked at the recipe a couple of days before and concluded it was one of those dishes that gets done in 10 minutes and yet looks spectacular, just like paella). Ingredients are
· 1 kg of small clams
· Half a sprig of flat aromatic parsley (Italian parsley is sooo aromatic)
· 400 g of spaghetti
· 1 tomato diced
· 4 cloves of garlic
· 1 cup of white wine
· Gobs of olive oil – say a third of a cup
· Coarse salt and pepper to taste
· Bread
First get the water for the spaghetti boiling and add a spoonful of salt. Once it is boiling add the spaghetti, set your timer to 12 minutes, and get ready to work frantically in the last 5 minutes of the boil. Heat the oil and fry the chopped garlic and parsley for about 1 minute. Add the diced tomato for another minute and pump up the heat. Add the clams for another minute. Add the cup of wine, and sprinkle generously with salt and pepper. Get the spaghetti drained, return to the pot, and pour the whole of the clams and the sauce over the spaghetti. Toss lightly and serve immediately. In the last moment bring out the bread, whose function is not for the guests to stuff themselves with bread, but to sop the residual liquid, which is delicious. Enjoy! We certainly did, and after a long after-dinner chat over wine and beer Robin and Dan promised they will come to visit me in California.
On another day I tried to go to Vulcano, the one that gives its name to all volcanoes all over the world, but I was told that the island was closed to non-essential personnel. Like Stromboli it is small and steep, but it is meaner in attitude and when it erupts it does it with a boom. Right now, Vulcano is in a state of “unrest”, with a marked increase in the amount of SO2 and CO2 being emitted from its fumaroles; this is of concern because these gases are heavier than air and could pond in a valley or cellar and cause asphyxia. I will have to content myself seeing it smoke from the distance.
Hmm … what to do with myself on this sunny day? Ah, yes, I will pay a visit to Signor Aldo, the barbiero. I found him hard as work and for a moment I thought I had been transported to a comic book. Signor Aldo is a tiny man, who immediately reminded me of the very short Seňor Regino Burrón, maestro peluquero and husband of the tall and skinny Doña Borola Tacuche de Burrón, who together with their kids Macuca, Tejocote, and Foforito gave me so many hours of pleasure as a kid in the comic book La Familia Burrón. This masterpiece of social wit plays in the Mexico of the last half of the 20th century, follows the ups and downs of a nuclear family of the lower class, and with incredible precision makes good fun of the quirky Mexican culture. Check it out! But I divagate. Signor Aldo invited me to sit down with great courtesy, and snip snip, with a delicate hand got rid of the curls that I had grown in six months of travel. As we talked about the cold Tramontana that was blowing, discussed the coming of Christmas, and chatted about Lipari and the world, I felt drawn into the island society. When with great courtesy Signor Aldo helped me to my coat and hat, I knew I had been anointed by this tiny minister as a rightful member of the town.
After my ritual baptism as a true Liparite, I went back to the port and … drum roll … I stopped being a pedestrian and rented a Japanese knockout of a Vespa-type scooter! Oh joy, I have wheels again 😊 Free at last I went for a trip around the island, taking every narrow country path that I could, roaming through the beaches, the steep slopes, and all the way to the top of the Liparian mountains to see, in comfort and from a distance, the spewing of steam from nearby Vulcano. Fortunately the island is small, so after making a first circum-navigation I managed to pass by Lipari around lunch time, went to the small restaurant where the locals go, and had a delicious dish of potato dumplings covered in thin strips of stake, a side dish of green peas and carrots in a tomato sauce, a glass of wine, and a canolo filled with creamed ricotta and sprinkled with confectioners’ sugar and pistachio nuts. It is playing havoc with my carefully balanced diet, but someone has to eat all this delicious food.
I went back for another round of scootering, and I was way out there in the wilds when I noticed, with some surprise, that I had gone from having a half tank of gas to having a nearly full tank. How funny. Maybe a scooter is the way to solve all the energy needs of the world. These Japanese engineers really are clever. Could there be another explanation? My guardian angel again? The needle was pegged on the right by the E of Full … I wonder what word in Italian starts with E and means pieno … but all other gages are labeled in English … E for … Empty! Goodness gracious, the gage is flipped Japanese-like, and Empty is to the right. After the first moment of panic, I took a deep breath and took stock of the situation. The engine is still going, so there must be at least a little fuel left. And of the 15 kilometers back to Lipari at least half must be downhill so I can coast down; if I am just gentle on the uphill I might be able to make it back to town. It took me half hour to get back to the shop, but I did manage it, and without saying a word I parked the scooter and took my leave. I hope they run out of gas before reaching the fuel station.
Lipari is not only a delightful island, but is distinguished from the other basaltic Aeolian Islands by the fact that many of the lavas erupted in it are rhyolitic in composition. I have geologic maps showing thick lava flows full of flow structures and internal ramp structures, have seen obsidian jewelry in the shops of the town, and even know that this was one of the first rocks to be named by Italian volcanologists as “liparite”. I was thus ready to encounter glass mountains full of the stuff and with fabulous examples of flow structures in a viscous magma. Alas, I was disappointed. The island is covered by scrub, cactus, and patches of agriculture, so it is almost impossible to look at the rocks. There are some pumice quarries, and now and then you see the glint of obsidian peering out of the bushes, but nothing as spectacular as you see in Owens Valley or Medicine Lake in California.
The islands are actually very close together, so I wonder if
what we are seeing are different levels being tapped from a large and elongated
compositionally zoned magma chamber. I will need to look at a map and research
this idea.
DING, DONG, DING, DONG! My goodness, what is that racket, apparently just outside my window? Oh, it is the church bells, calling to mass. That’s right, it is Sunday at 8:30 and mass will probably start at 9 am. Just enough time to put on my clothes and grab my jacket. I figured I would meet my friends there, Luigi who had rented me the scooter, Signor Aldo, and Vanessa from the hotel, but I guess 9 am is too early, and it was only the old biddies and the old guys that come to the early mass. I couldn’t fail to think that this was a good Italian lesson for myself because the ritual is exactly the same as it is in Mexico (the readings and the Gospel change, of course, but that just adds a bit of spice to the experience).
Since I was out and about this was a good time for me to climb to the bastion and visit the Archaeological Museum. The bastion is built on a natural pillar, which is an erosional remnant of a time when seal level was lower and a thick layer of gravels formed an alluvial fan that was later cut on both sides by creeks. It was thus a perfect place for ancient peoples to build their aldea. This happened during the Neolithic, the early Bronze age, the late Bronze age, the Greek period, the Roman period, the Normans around 1,000 AD, and finally the Middle Ages, so today we have a complex site with one occupational level on top of the other. Just like in the archaeology textbooks!
The collection is a fine one, with some fine pieces from the Greek period, including beautifully decorated black-on-orange pitchers. I was wondering what would be the easiest way to break in during the night to remove one of them, when in the following room I found a fabulous collection of tiny terracotta figurines, also from the Greek period, thar represented the characters of some of the satirical plays that were so popular in that period. There were fat lascivious old men, suggestive young females, honorable matrons, gossipy old maidens, and all sorts of mythological figures. This is archaeology at its best, recreating the quirky ways of everyday life.
Lots and lots of artifacts in display, and after a while everything starts to run together and look alike. Fortunately the last four rooms were devoted to the volcanology of the Aeolian Islands, and I had a good time looking through models, geologic maps, and all sorts of descriptions about the sequence of events (some more fanciful than others, but interesting nonetheless).
Lunch was a salad with thin strips of horse meat. Pretty tasty and, no, horse does not taste like chicken.
The time has come to move on, so I spent the afternoon packing and tidying up my room. For dinner I made a delicious bean and sausage soup in a tomato and beer broth, and that night had all sorts of nightmares about Mongolian viruses taking over my cell phones. Early breakfast of leftover paella (yumm … if all leftovers could just be like this) and by 6 am I was walking down the street to take the next ferry to the mainland. Goodbye Lipari!
SICILY - MESSINA
The ferry to Messina had been canceled, so instead I took the ferry to Milazzo, disembarked, and right then and there got in a bus to Messina, which gave me an excellent opportunity to see the land in a beautiful sunny day. Once we got to Messina I had the good sense to find out in Google Maps where I was staying, and was delightfully surprised that we were just passing by it. I quickly asked for the next stop and in 5 minutes completed the walk that would have taken me 30 minutes from the bus terminal. It was too early to check in, but I tucked my bag on the porch, and trusting that nobody would want to disturb it I went to visit the city.
I came here for the sole purpose of seeing the Strait of Messina, a narrow passage maybe three kilometers wide and 30 kilometers long between the tip of the boot of Italy and the triangular island of Sicily. In a map it looks like Italy is kicking the Sicilian ball to start the game!
The Strait is known for its fast currents and quirky winds, and in the Classic age many were the triremes that ended crashing against the shores, pushed by an unexpected gust of wind. Circe warned Odysseus about the Strait in these words”
“Now on the other path are two cliffs, one of which reaches with its sharp peak to the broad heaven, and a dark cloud surrounds it. … And in the midst of the cliff is a dim cave, [away from which] you shall steer your hollow ship, glorious Odysseus. … Therein dwells Scylla, yelping terribly. Her voice is indeed but as the voice of a new-born whelp, but she herself is an evil monster, nor would anyone be glad at sight of her, no, not though it were a god that met her. Verily she has twelve feet, all misshapen, and six necks, exceeding long, and on each one an awful head, and therein three rows of teeth, thick and close, and full of black death. Up to her middle she is hidden in the hollow cave, but she holds her head out beyond the dread chasm, and fishes there, eagerly searching around the rock for dolphins and sea-dogs and whatever greater beast she may haply catch, such creatures as deep-moaning Amphitrite rears in multitudes past counting. By her no sailors yet may boast that they have fled unscathed in their ship, for with each head she carries off a man, snatching him from the dark-prowed ship.”
“But the other cliff, thou wilt note, Odysseus, is lower—they are close to each other; thou couldst even shoot an arrow across—and on it is a great fig tree with rich foliage, but beneath this divine Charybdis sucks down the black water. Thrice a day she belches it forth, and thrice she sucks it down terribly. Mayest thou not be there when she sucks it down, for no one could save thee from ruin, no, not the Earth-shaker. Nay, draw very close to Scylla's cliff, and drive thy ship past quickly; for it is better far to mourn six comrades in thy ship than all together.’ “
Look as I might, I couldn’t see traces of these monsters. Scylla was often rationalized in antiquity as a rock or reef, and there are certainly plenty of those. Charybdis’ character was most likely the personification of a whirlpool, although the best that can be said for the Strait is that the current turns with the tide every six hours, and that countercurrents are common along the sides of the channel.
Messina is otherwise full of churches and palazzos, and I enjoyed my walk through it well enough. Still, I have planned to be here for one and a half days, and I suspect that is too much (then again, I am still working on Book 2, so if my room is comfortable I might spend most of tomorrow in it, working on one of the last four chapters. (Note: my room is very comfortable, and I have Netflix, so the idea of working home for a day is becoming pretty appealing).
True to plan, I spent quite a bit of time in my room, but my host had told me that going to see the tower clock in the Cathedral, at noon, was a well recognized tourist attraction. I got there with plenty of time, one of just a handful of tourists, and had time to admire the beautiful tower, with its gilded figures. Looked like we were in for a treat looking at the movements of the different figures (the Italian version of It’s a Small World). Finally noon came, and on the stroke of the twelfth bell the lion of top shook its head and started to roar. Then the rooster started to crow, At the same, the Cathedral of La Immacolata sank out of view (not the Cathedral itself, but the small model of it in a niche in the tower). We were then treated to a musical rendition of Ave Maria while the rest of the figures did … nothing! I am going to guess that the best part of the mechanism is out of commission and the dioceses has not gotten around to repair it.
Since I was out of my hole, I took the opportunity to go to a Chinese restaurant for fried rice and a tasty dish of duck with mushrooms and bamboo. After my delicious lunch I meandered through the city for a while and slowly climbed the hill to my cozy room.
The following day I woke up to the sound of rain. Rats! I was leaving at 6 am for the train station, and rather than dragging my luggage for half an hour were planning on taking the bus. Good plan, but it entailed waiting for the bus under the rain. The spirit of the rain was kind to me, and lowered its intensity just long enough for me to go down to the bus stop, where I huddled under the awning before it picked up again. 20 minutes later the bus came by, and by the time we got to the train station the rain had stopped. Lucky me!
I took the train from Messina to Syracuse (Siracusa in Italian), which took me along the coast and allowed me to admire snow-clad Mount Etna, as well as vast outcrops of the medium-bedded cream limestone out of which every building in south and southwest Sicily seems to be built. These are shallow water calcarenites and are for the most part horizontal, so whatever the tectonics of Sicily it seems to have spared this region.
SICILY - SIRACUSA
I got to Siracusa at 10 am, dropped my luggage at the hotel I had reserved near the train station, and went to explore. Siracusa was established by the Greeks in the 7th century BC, at the end of a narrow peninsula, but started having troubles with the Carthaginians in the 5th century BC and the peninsula was cut off to create a fortified island. In the 4th century BC they patched up with the Carthaginians and became allies, which was definitively looked at with a jaundiced eye by the Romans. Finally, in the 3rd century BC the Romans attacked Siracusa, which thanks to Archimede held on for a couple of years, but eventually Sicily fell in Roman hands and that was the end of that. My goals for this visit were, then, to explore the archeological park, the archaeology museum, and to walk in the shadow of Archimede di Siracusa, known to us as Archimedes.
To start backwards, as I was crossing the bridge that now connects the island to the mainland, I spotted an open plaza with the statue of an ancient dude in the center. It was Archimede, the Genius of Siracusa, who was surrounded by testimonies to his brilliant intellect in the form of tangram-like slabs of concrete (a tribute to Archimede’s Stomachia), inscribed one with a Π, other with a buoyant object, a third one with a lever, and so on. I will tell you more about Archimede later, but will share my frustration to learn that the Archimede museum was closed due to Covid. In fact, I get the feeling that Siracusa is a lot more paranoid about Covid than the other cities I have visited, because there are lots of things that are closed or simply abandoned.
OK, so what did I do that day … well, I wandered through the streets of the old town, stopped at the Tourist Info office and saw a very cool 3-D film about the development of the city across the ages, and paid a visit to the Palazzo Bellomo, which has a very fine collection of Medieval religious paintings, the jewel among them being “The Annunciation” by Antonello da Messina. I walked and walked and walked, and pretty soon the old town held no secrets for me.
I devoted the next day to archaeology, first at the Parco Archaeologico and then at the museum. The Parco are the actual remains of a very large Forum (the public plaza), a quarry that had been turned into a prison during Greco-Roman times, a large and very fine theater, and a not-so-large but still very attractive amphitheater. Having seen the remains of the ancient city, I walked a few city blocks to the museum, where I was once again amazed at the number and quality of pieces in display. Bless the Chief Archaeologist, Paolo Orsi, who was a stickler for details and for preserving every little piece of pottery he ever came across. I was getting ready to go home, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a placard for the Tecnoparco Archimede, which claimed to be open everyday Tuesday to Sunday at 9:30 am. OK, I guess I know what I am doing tomorrow Sunday.
The Tecnoparco Archimede is a private effort by a local teacher and his daughter, to recreate and offer demonstrations of the different accomplishments of the Genius of Siracusa. Some of the demo models are a bit shaky, but as a whole it is a very nice overview of the many accomplishments of this polymath of the 3rd century BC. You have all heard, of course, the story of how Archimede was taking a bath when he got a blinding insight into the phenomenon of buoyancy, and how in his excitement ran naked through the streets of Siracusa shouting “Eureka. Eureka!” I don’t know how much of that story is true, but I have found a new admiration for the old boy because in an age where philosophers very much looked down their noses at engineering applications of mathematics, he was not only a brilliant mathematician (the first to estimate the value of Π, define the parabola, calculate the are and volume of the cone, the sphere, and the cylinder, or use infinite approximations (i.e., calculus)), he was also a keen scientist (e.g., his understanding of buoyancy, hydraulics, and mechanics, as well as his accurate calculation of the radius and circumference of the Earth), and a brilliant engineer (e.g., use of different types of levers and gears, design of ballistas and catapults, use of parabolic mirrors and steam “cannons” to cause panic among attacking ships, or design of the hydraulic screw to lift water from canals). There is much to admire on the work of the Genius of Siracusa!
It being Sunday, trying to move anywhere is a real challenge. I wanted to go to Ragusa by bus, but no deal. So instead I found the one lonely run that would take me from Siracusa (leaving at 16:00) to Caltanisssetta (19:00) to Agrigento (20:00). Unfortunately once we got to Caltanissetta (a forsaken mountain town, cold and damp) I got summarily informed that the train to Agrigento had been cancelled, and that I should take the bus there. This is where survival Italian proves insufficient, because I could get no details from the station about the bus. “Just wait outside of the station”, was all I could get out of the staff, so like a moppet I stood outside in the cold waiting for a miracle. And a miracle did come, in the form of a friendly passerby, who asked me what I was waiting for, and when I told him “the bus for Agrigento” directed me down the road to the pullman station, where by another miracle I found a staff member, who sold me a ticket for the 21:30 bus, just before he closed the office. So I stood out there in the cold, for about one hour and a half, and was finally rewarded for my patience as the big bus drove in. It took a while, but by 23:00 I was entering my warm new room and uttering a big sigh of relief.
SICILY - AGRIGENTO
My new digs are pretty nice. Again an absentee landlord, but very helpful over WhatsApp and with a good artistic sense, so the room feels very welcoming and I will have use of the kitchen. Of course I only plan to spend here three nights, but I will take advantage of any small luxury that Lady Luck sends my way.
I have come here with two goals in mind. First, I wanted to be in a Sicilian mountain town, where palazzos, plazas and houses are randomly scattered over the slopes, sometimes defying gravity, and where lives intersect to create funny scenes or hot-headed crime. I have discovered the novels of Andrea Camilleri, featuring the exploits of Commissario Montalbano, and I wanted to be in the environment that inspired him (and was I surprised to find a statue of Andrea Camilleri in one of the tiny plazas. Yes, Agrigento could very well be the inspiration for the fictional town of Vigata.
I also came for the archaeology, since the modern city of Agrigento overlooks the Greek city of Akragas, now known to all as “The Valley of the Temples”. It really should be called “The Ridge of the Temples” because of course the temples are built up high, in the ridge that separates two valleys that descend to the sea. Akragas was founded in the 6th century BC, apparently in land that was occupied by pastoral people still stuck in the Bronze Age. The town went through the same up and downs with Carthaginians and Romans that Siracusa had experienced. But the Akragas were big into monumental temples, and left behind them some truly outstanding ruins (actually, all of the temples had collapsed by the time the Middle Ages had rolled in, and some of them were “mined” by local tetrarchs for their palazzos, so what we now see was the result of first rate archaeologic work in the 20th century). By the way, the most famous son of Akragas was Empedocles, which unfortunately was not a scientist or engineer like Archimede, but a philosopher, to whom we owe such nonsense as the notion that all matter is formed by the primordial elements of fire, water, wind, and earth, or that we could see things because of the rays that issued from our eyes and reflected back from the objects they hit. You can see where my sympathies lie.
I took the bus and arrived there at maybe 9:30, with the intention of seeing it all: the temples, the excavations, and the museum. And for the second time (the first one was in Siracusa) found out that the museum is located nearly a kilometer from the main site. Grumble, grumble. But it is a very nice museum, overwhelming in the number of pieces on display, that shows the high quality of work done at the site. Most impressive is the reconstruction of a 12-m high Atlas, one of 16 who held the roof of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. This temple apparently was never completed, but was famous in antiquity for its enormous dimensions. The one temple that has been completely reconstructed is the Temple of Concordia, the goddess of agreement in marriage and society, and its profile on the ridge easily transports you to ancient times.
Rats! My German SIM card has stopped working, as I had expected to happen because the 3-month contract I had paid for had lapsed. Fortunately close to my abode there is a small shop that carries SIM cards, so for an outlay of 26 euros I am now the proud owner of an Italian cell phone number!
Today was a slow day, but I got out of my cave to go down to the Port of Empedocles, where Andrea Camilleri was born, and where much of his literary production was based. It was a dead town, and I couldn’t even get an overpriced seafood lunch because everything was closed. So I bought wine, bread, and some tinned fish, had lunch sitting at a bench in the main plaza, and at my leisure took the bus back to my comfortable lodgings.
The following day at 1 pm I took the bus to Trapani, on the west corner of Sicily, where I got around 5 pm. I walked to the ferry ticket office and booked a cabin for the evening trip to Pantelleria. The ferry departs at 11 pm! Furthermore, I was informed I had to go all around the port embayment, about 5 miles total, to embark. Grrr! To reward myself I had an early dinner at a Chinese restaurant (curry noodles and sliced pork in a spicy sauce that was very good), before starting on the long march around the embayment. I was going around the water, so there was little opportunity of going astray, but these were dark and lonely alleys and from time to time a ferocious dog would spring out of nowhere, and after negotiating the labyrinth for an hour, when all of a sudden I got the feeling that something was just not right. Now, you may have heard me say that in such situations I trust my instincts more than my reason, so I stopped, turn 90 degrees and walked a few feet but it still didn’t feel right, so I turned another 90 degrees and this time the uncomfortable feeling went away. I went like this for about half an hour when I found myself at the place where the last dog had sprung on me. Aha! That had been my mistake. In order to get away from the dog I had turned left, when I should have turned right. Perfecto! 15 minutes later I caught sight of the ship, and fortunately for me the attendants took pity of the passengers on foot and let us board at 9:30 pm. I went straight to my modest cabin (but I had my own tiny bathroom) and felt promptly asleep. The cabin cost me additional 30 euros, but was worth every centesimo!
PANTELLERIA
We reached Pantelleria at 6:30 am (couldn’t the ferry be two hours later this time, like all the other ferries have been?) and I disembarked to a dark, cold, and slightly foggy peer. Normally I would have had to wait until 1 pm to get into my lodgings, but my new host had offered to meet me at 9 am and while I waited the sun came out and I looked happily over my new hometown. Benedetto was as good as his word, and at 9 am we met in a narrow calle that started at the seaside promenade, and a block into the town he stopped and opened the door to the tiny house that was going to be my home for the next week. The location is perfect, a block from the promenade, a block from the supermarket, a block from the pizzeria, and a block from the scooter rental place. Maravilloso! The house is maybe 4 by 6 m (about 15 by 20 ft), has a small but functional bathroom, a bedroom, and a combined living room, dining room, and tiny kitchen (a two burner stove, a tiny fridge, and a small sink, but no microwave). Fortunately there is a functioning AC system, because the nights are getting cold and the house was as cold as a bone.
First order of business was to get me some wheels, so I walked all of 20 paces to the scooter rental place, intent on renting a scooter for a full week. Alas, it was not to be. The lady in charge was not as easy going as my friend Luigi from Lipari, and did not accept the digital copy of my driving license as valid, and had zero sympathy for my sob story about having lost my wallet a couple of months ago. Confronted with the Ice Queen I had no choice but give up, and will continue wallowing along as a despicable peatone ☹
Next came a visit to the supermarket, to buy the basics. Since my basics include things like vodka, orange juice, fizzy water, wine, and beer (and pasta, salt, sugar, coffee, veggies, bread, and …) I had to make two trips in the morning, and another two the following day. But I wanted to live the simple life of an Italian retiree, didn’t I?
Still smarting from my failure to rent a scooter I went in search of the public bus. Yes, there is a bus service to move around the island, but I am not quite sure how good it is. The buses run maybe every couple of hours, so I am going to have to be careful about taking a bus there, looking around, and then catching the bus back on the next run, at the risk of having to sit there for two hours, or even missing the last run of the day. There are fixed schedules, which will make my life easier, but the bus stops are few and far between, and are very poorly marked. To test my understanding of the system I went from Pantelleria (in the far north) to Scauri (in the southwest) and back. I had enough time in Scauri to climb to the monastery and inspect the pyroclastic rocks in the adjoining cliffs, but looking at the center of the island the Montagna Grande looks indeed like a very tall mountain and I am going to need more time to explore it.
When I got home I finally took inventory of the cooking implements at my disposal: A tiny pan, a tiny pot, and a tiny espresso maker. The tiny pan and the espresso maker are going to be a challenge, but the tiny pot is definitely an insult to my inner Italian. How can I cook my daily pasta in such a tiny pot? Clearly whoever lived here was a risotto eater, but this will definitely not do. So, I walked all of 20 paces to the supermarket, and for 15 euros bought myself a proper pasta pot. I am here for only six meals, and I am not carrying the pot with me, so I will have to cover the spectrum of tasty meals I know just to pay back the expense.
I have found out that getting to Malta is very difficult, and getting from Malta to Crete is nigh impossible. So I have had to rearrange my travel plans, and on December 22 will fly from Pantelleria to Palermo to Milan, and on the morning of the 23rd will fly from Milan to Paris, to go spend Christmas with the Marchand’s. On the 26th I will fly from Paris to Crete, and pick up the thread of my travels there.
Speaking as a geologist, Pantelleria is world-famous amongst volcanologists because of the unit called the Green Tuff, which is highly peralkaline and the defining unit for the term “pantellerite”. When I came to the island I was expecting to see lots of green rocks, and was sadly disappointed when I saw that there is a lot of black basalt, and that even other rocks (e.g., latites, trachytes) and the Green Tuff itself weather into dark brown and black colors. The island is green enough thanks to cacti, palms, and other shrubbery, but the rocks themselves are dark. And because the natives like to build their houses with rocks, the villages can be really uninviting in their aspect.
A peculiar aspect of Pantesca construction is the “bulge” they build on top of their rock cabins. Clearly the idea is to provide for some roof drainage (they could have accomplished the same effect by sloping the roof) but what is really odd is the way in which the bulge is constructed. Instead of a thin-walled arch, what they do is pile rocks on the beams of the roof until they achieve the desired bulge, and then coat the rock mound with a thin veneer of concrete. The end result is an extremely heavy roof, so it is no surprise that when a house is left uninhabited for any length of time the roof caves in, adding to the forbidding aspect of the town.
My second foray took me to Lago Specchio de Venere (the Lake Mirrir of Venus), which occupies a small depression banked against the rim of the 6-km-wide Cinque Denti caldera (we would call it a moat lake), formed after eruption of the Green Tuff 45,000 years ago. It is a pretty lake, maybe 200 m in diameter, with turquoise water and hot springs bubbling through the bottom sand. I bet it is a favorite pic-nic spot for the locals. The exposed wall of the Cinque Denti caldera has some good exposures of the three flow units of the Green Tuff, and a nice sequence of air-fall tuffs between the second and third units. I did not bring a hammer or a handlens, which shows that I am slipping as a geologist, but did my best to break some of the rocks against the cliff and stare at the phenocrysts of alkali feldspar and sodic pyroxene.
On the third day I woke up at 4 am, for some strange reason convinced that the only bus that goes up high the inside of the island departed at 6 am. It did depart at 6 am, but I could also have taken the one that departed at 11:40 or 14:10. In any case, I took the 6 am bus, and by 6:30, still in darkness, it dropped me off at Sibá, a few hundred meters below the crest of Montagna Grande, which is the tallest point in the island. I had no intention of climbing it, however, and instead chose to walk around it, to visit Grotta di Benikula, which is mentioned among the must-see spots in the island as being a “natural spa”. I enjoyed sunrise as I was trudging there and was happy to catch sight of the western margin of the Cinque Denti caldera way down there in the Piana di Monastero (the plain of Monastero). I was also fascinated by the fire orange color of the lichens, which for once added a bright dash of color to the dark landscape.
Grotta di Benikula is a narrow cleft among the rocks, where steam wisps come out in the cold air of the early morning. A couple of benches overlooking Piana di Monastero constitute the frigidarium or cold atrium of the natural sauna, and crawling inside the cleft I felt an immediate rise in temperature, the caldarium, and an urge to get out before I passed out.
Montagna Grande is a trapdoor uplift of the floor of Cinque Denti caldera, as you can easily see from the tilted layers of the intracaldera Green Tuff. The uplift was followed by the eruption of a pantellerite dome, where I got to see some very nice examples of vitrophyre (but I never saw a true aphyric obsidian). Several fumaroles along the faulted front of the uplift bear witness that the mephitic vapors of Hades still rise from the depths of Pantelleria.
I felt I had done a great day’s worth of hiking, when I saw with a shock that it was only 10 am, and that the next bus from the highway I had dropped on was not due until 12:30. Rats! I may have mentioned that the buses do not seem to run for the benefit of the visitor, but are rather timed to serve the purposes of students going back and forth to school (mind you, there were no students in the 6 am run I had taken in the morning, but I bet the bus was full with students on the way back to Pantelleria).
The following days I concentrated on finishing my writing projects, and eating and drinking. I am so close to finishing my third big project I am only glad enough to stay in my tiny house.
Done! 100% done! Last night I finished my “Notes on California Geology”, which grew into a 20 chapters book, and with this third project done I have met the goals I had set for myself during tis sabbatical. I am sure I will come up with another project to occupy my extra time, but that will be just icing on the cake.
So Pantelleria has the shape of a slender pear, with the town of Pantelleria occupying the position of the stem. With the bus you can go about 15 km clockwise to about on third of the island to Khamma, or 15 km counterclockwise to Scauri, but there is no bus covering the final third, between Khamma and Scauri. So I decided to walk from Scauri to Khamma, and let me tell you it was a long, solitary walk, in which I saw not a leaving person or passing cars, and which took me about four hours. It is a good thing I had nothing else to do because half way through I was ready to throw in the towel (but then I would have to go back the way I had come, which was not an attractive prospect either.
Having learned from my mistake of the previous day, for my final day I chose a short walk to the lighthouse and the Vulcanological Museum, which I thought I could complete in the hour between buses. It was a pretty path, but at the end there was nothing to be seen because the museum was closed. So I went to take a quick look to the cove by the lighthouse, and from there hurry back to catch the bus on its way back from Khamma. Arghh, I missed it by 5 minutes. It was 8:45 and the next one would not pass until 12:45! I told you the buses here have off schedules. Well, I was not going to wait for 4 hours, so I started walking, and at 10:50 finally reached Pantelleria. I don’t know about public transportation in a small island.
And that is pretty much it for my stay at the tiny house in Pantelleria. Tomorrow I will depart at 15:00 Pantelleria to Palermo in the Danish Airline that services the island, then take the Alitalia flight from Palermo to Milan. Spend 8 hours of boredom at the Milan airport, and finally continue with Alitalia to Charles De Gaulle airport in Paris.
Goodbye, beautiful Italy. Hopefully I will return soon.
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