Sciacca and Mazara del Vallo
Well folks, it's been Seattle weather here for the first 3 days of our trip. Mid to upper 50's and rain. Not a lot of time spent traveling around because of that. We did get to the basilica of San Cologero on top of Mt Kronio and had a chance to get to the museum, or as it's called, the antiquarium, next door. According to history of the city, St. Cologero was living in a grotto on top of the mountain. This grotto was at the top of what is now known to be a 400 meter deep cavern that emanates steam, somewhat sulphurous, and is the source of the mineral baths here in Sciacca. Over the past 50 or so years there's been a lot of exploration. Prehistory artifacts, large and small jars, vases, figurines, etc. have been found in the caves. Some of the amphorae are quite large and must have been difficult to get down in there.
The views from the top at the monastery are beautiful. Check out the shots we got during a break in the weather on Friday.
Saturday afternoon the rains let up and we headed down to Sciacca centro and the port. It was mid-afternoon and the shops were closed for the standard siesta. We should have gotten out before the shops opened because traffic is nasty on the narrow streets when everyone comes back out. There's a large fishing fleet here. The big boats are trawlers or shrimpers. Not a bunch of bottom-draggers like the ones in the Bering Sea that are based in Seattle. There's a fisherman's church down by the commercial quay on the east side and a large pleasure craft marina on the west side of the bay. You can see the sickle shape of the breakwater on the last photo above.
These photos are taken from the west end of the bay, at the end of the breakwater. The pleasure craft and yacht clubs are here. The last shot shows the fishing fleet along the far eastern breakwater with the city between them.
We then drove to the eastern end to check out the fishing fleet and the working part of the harbor. Old warehouses, some in pretty bad shape, and a stairway with a mermaid statue are at the north end of the working port and quay. The stairway is decorated like many stairs in the city center. The risers are adorned with beautiful examples of the ceramics that this city is renowned for. Quite a difference from the condition of many of the older buildings.
Today it was beautiful, sunny and warm, so we headed out for some sightseeing. We drove to Mazara del Vallo, about 20 kilometers west of Sciacca on the coast. This city was one of the first to rebuild after the Arabs were driven from the island by the Normans. We walked through the casbah, the old Arab built section. The streets are narrow and curved, as a defensive measure. Medina in Malta is very similar but it's inland and has massive walls for protection. Also, the houses in Medina have very narrow windows, set high up on the 2nd floors of the buildings. Here they are at street level. Old churches, many abandoned or repurposed as museums, are frequent. Earthquakes have severely damaged some, as St. Ignatius, the Jesuit church next to the Jesuit college shows.
Church of St. Ignatius. Services in the round. The main altar is behind me. The frescoes and statues have been removed and repurposed in other places.
Before stopping for some lunch down by the Mediterranean we wandered around taking shots of the churches and streets in the old casbah. They've even retained the Arab name for the quarter. This is also the city center. There are all kinds of stylish shops down here, but none were open, it being Sunday. The shutters were all closed so you couldn't even window shop. The restaurants were full of families having Sunday dinner, a big custom here. I suppose mama's house is not always the place for family to eat on Dominica.
We had lunch at one of the many restaurants across from the beach. We picked Baby Luna. Cath wanted one of the small pizza's but the ovens weren't fired up till dinner time so she had a wonderful smoked seafood plate. I had Pasta con Sarde. It was different from what Mario serves at La Fontana in Seattle. His has tomato sauce with skinless, boneless sardines, raisins, pine nuts and fennel while this used fresh tomatoes and had the traditional Sicilian bread crumbs on top. Nonetheless it was delicious, but such a large serving that I couldn't eat it all. DANGER! Pasta dishes here are huge.
Well, the sun's supposed to be out tomorrow and we'll be hitting some other local towns.
I've had real problems with my Garmin GPS. The European city maps have not downloaded to the mini-SD card and will not despite multiple tries. This is a nagging thing to deal with. At least I have had a Vodaphone sim card installed in my old iPhone 4S and can use it for navigation when I need something better than maps. The Nissan Rogue we rented has a nav system but we have not found out how to load street addresses. It doesn't seem to accept them like the Garmin does. You can get cities and roads, but not houses. That sucks. At least I have cellular access without needing wifi which will help.
That's it. It's nearly 11:30 PM and a shower and bed awaits.
Ciao for now.