It’s been long time between drinks! Hoping you haven’t been holding your breath waiting for this but we have been far to busy travelling and having fun! I believe we left you in Syracuse. The fortified island of Ortigia that is accessible by bridge from Syracuse and is the historical centre of the city. We enjoyed a relaxing weekend there wandering the narrow streets and sampling some traditional family operated restaurants- some selected on instinct and some recommended. Being the weekend also gifted us the opportunity to shop at the fresh food market where we bought the ingredients to cook our own meals. Amongst other items we bought some fresh chillies which the stall owner described as ‘Etna Chillies’ I thought she was being a bit gimmicky at the time but when I put a few too many in my ‘Spaghetti Aioli’ our heads nearly erupted!!
After we left Syracuse we drove 100 km out of our way to do what everyone should do when they visit Sicily – spend a day at the outlet mall! I say that with heavy sarcasm!. But, it was me that walked away with a new pair of Geox shoes and Armani jeans while Linda was empty handed.
After a long day of driving and shopping we parked ourselves in a small hotel in the seaside town of Giardini Naxos. It was a hastily made booking organised by yours truly. When we were shown to our room, that was marginally bigger than the box my new shoes came in, with a bathroom that was down the hall and downstairs next to the common dining room, I immediately offered my resignation as ‘co accommodation planner’. A stroll into town revealed lots of bright lights and rows of hotels filled with tourists that seemed to be the type that would fly in and feel they were being adventurous by leaving the confines of their resorts to visit one of the many restaurants while being entertained by the trio of travelling musicians, piano accordion and all.
While having breakfast the next morning, Linda asked the lady at the hotel about the village on top of the mountain overlooking Naxos. ‘That is Castelmola’, she replied. It looked like a bunch of buildings perched on top of a rock, it didn’t seem possible to drive up there, especially in our little Toyota Aygo (I wanted to write the word ‘slowly’ under the Aygo badge! It wasn’t too bad on the freeway once you wound it up but it didn’t like hills). ‘I want to go up there’, Linda announced. Myself and the Aygo were not so sure, but before we knew it, Linda had researched and booked us into a hotel at the very top of the mountain so off we went. We stopped about halfway up at a lookout. The view was magnificent and the air was fresh. “Not a bad idea after all” I was beginning to think so off we went for the remainder of the climb. Second gear was as far as we were going on that leg. In fact I had to slam it back into first for some of the many hairpin corners and even then it was running out of puff! It was all about giving it a bag full of revs and keeping the momentum otherwise it was a matter of rolling back and having another go. As we got close to the summit there was a large car park with a uniformed dude and a ticket machine. Beyond the car park was a sign that said “Do not enter” or “No cars beyond this point”- Our Italian is very poor but we could work out the sign indicated one or the other….. So we continued on! That was until we were confronted by a policewoman outside a church, who we thought was going to give us a right barreling. In my very best Italian accent I told her the name of the Guesthouse we were booked into. With that she smiled, made a phone call and directed us down the winding road where about three minutes later we were confronted by a man on a Vespa riding towards us. He gave us a wave, did a U turn and gestured us to follow- Turned out he was the Guesthouse owner and the call the policewoman made, was to alert him of our arrival! We felt very welcome. Our room, with low (head banging) rafters, was on the very top floor accessed by a narrow stairway. ‘How were we going to get our fat suitcase up there?’ I feared. Not a problem for our ingenious hotel owner: He simply lowered the cable of his homemade electric winch, shouted at Nona down below to hook the suitcase up and hoisted it to the the top floor. After this effort, we felt obliged to commit to an extra night- And why wouldn’t we? With a commanding view of the coastline and the smoking Mt Etna in the distance we could have stayed a few days.
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A stroll through the cobble stoned town offered many surprises. None more than Cafe Turrisi. It is known as ‘The penis bar of Sicily’. It is completely obsessed with penises and phallic symbols. We didn’t fully understand the reason behind it but the passion and dedication to honouring the penis was amazing. From the penis shaped menu to the numerous statues and even the penis outline on the bespoke floor tiles throughout the three levels demonstrated a huge amount of thought and detail that had gone into the place. Just when we thought we had seen everything, a trip to the toilet not only featured a penis shaped mirror but custom tap-ware featuring a penis shaped spout and ball shaped tap handles representing the testicles- I was grateful that no one else was in the bathroom as I was feeling uneasy spinning the taps and anxious as no water was coming out! Linda later told me that there was a foot operated pedal to activate the water flow- leaving me feeling very silly as well as embarrassed.
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We are going to leave you with these images and you are going to have to wait for ‘Part Two’ to find out if we have encountered any other bodily parts in cafe’s or bars!