Today Romina brought her beautiful little one year old Francesco and not all three kids as I had thought - that is for Thursday. Francesco had silver shoes. He tried to ride the dogs. We loved him right away.
Next, Ellen met us for a trip into Scicli and more. The drive, all ten minutes of it, was awesome. We screeched down narrow roads (in our North American worthy SUV - I mean, its bigger than the one I have in Toronto), on the edge of a rocky mountain from the top right down into the vast valley where Scicli lies. The city used to be on top of the mountain until an earthquake struck in 1693 and toppled it. The mountain side is dotted with caves that I learned were once where people hid during World War Two, but have since become homes, with rooms dug right out of the rocks.
I am dying to figure out how to get my photographs onto this blog but don't hold your breath.
Scicli is known as the "Baroque Jewel" for its picturesque palazzas, churches and architecture. We dropped the kids off at a local school with a matchbox playground and a steel fence. The kids were skeptical but shockingly enthusiastic when I picked them up. There are four German children who are fluent in English. All of the Sicilian children have English lessons at least once a week, and the Romanian English teacher, is always in the classroom. The children had been awaiting our arrival and my three felt welcome it seemed, right away.
I learned that the unexpected multi - cultural classroom was an accidental symbol of Sicily itself. Conquered by the Arabs, occupied by the Normans (who introduced the feudal system), the Swabian (German - who knew?), the French, and the Spanish. (I must have been sleeping during that history class). It wasn't until a vote in the middle eighteen hundreds that Sicily became part of the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. The truth is, I intuitively understood this on Day 1. when for breakfast I ate my way through pretty much an entire spread of streudel, croissant, bomboloni, and magdalenas.
On to Ellen's "palace." I chuckled at the translation problem.
Two twenty foot wooden and steel doors slowly began to open. This was clearly going to be one hell of an apartment. Inside the "garage" where she parked her car the ceilings were about 75ft high. At the back of the "garage" they were building an indoor swimming pool, a hamam (a steam room), a shower/bathroom and a workout room. It was all marble. There were giant wooden doors on the sides of the garage some with signage. Amministrazione was one, I can't remember the other. By now, Mavi (Ellen's daughter) had taken us to what was the entry point to the house. We walked into an all marble greeting area, with ornate chairs, couches and a richly colored rug. Most impressive though was the two hundred year old dog that barked when you pulled the rope attached to its head. The marble staircase was grand to say the least. It lead past fabric lined walls, chandeliers, and sculptures. Two bronze sculptures with lightbulbs given to her by her cousin, something something Fendi (of designer bag fame), were on the landing. They used to be in the Musée du Louvre.
We went to the room with the bed where a Pope slept. We saw his chapel and his ornate robes. We saw the music room, the red ballroom, the "light blue room" where somebody else important slept, the formal sitting room, the bathroom with the hand painted porcelain toilet. The gold room where all of the furniture was gold. Every single ceiling had a restored fresco on the ceiling - many of which were originally done by famous Italian painters. There was a framed, wall map of the world before North America was discovered. There was the armour of two knights. There were the bullet holes from World War Two that had pierced through three doors.
Ellen explained to me that all of this was a labour of love and why she only had one child. Unlike all of the other palaces in Sicily, and many in Italy that have been rennovated on the inside, or divided into apartments/suites, she and her husband had decided years ago to restore this one to its former glory. The plumbing, the heating, the walls, -- all of the frescoes. But what was even more striking than the palace was Ellen. More on that later.
We sat down to another extraordinary meal. Her mother, a Sicilian from Scicli who moved to San Francisco's North Beach as a child, and was later to become a Miss California or something of the sort, joined us. She collected lace. I have never before had an interest in lace but the lace in this house was jaw dropping. None of the ends were level. We went through family pictures while the kids played, we had tea by the window overlooking the palazza. Then Ellen drove us home.
Stuffed again, I called Giuseppe and suggested that he take the night off as I was pretty sure none of us would be able to eat for awhile. He came by with pastries, and local wild asparagus (its long and stringy), uva pomodorino (grape tomatoes just picked), purple artichokes, zuchinni, lettuce, funghi and more. Scicli is an agricultural town - in fact, I think I heard it was the primary one for Sicily. It just made me want to eat again. Instead, I built a fire and read stories to the kids.
The mellowing didn't work as well as I had hoped and one of them is yelling at me now so I am going to have to go throttle her.
More tomorrow...
