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Monday, July 23rd, San Leone,
Sicily, Italy
Castles, churches, ancient Greek cities, more churches, Arab sounds and flavors,
still more churches, and another Greek city; we wonder what other treasures await
discovery in our remaining time in Sicily.
The highlight of the week was our visit with
Vincenzo, Paola, Gloria (8), Bianca (7) and Alessandro (5) at the
Castello di Solanto. We enjoyed a
wonderful day of touring the castle, swimming in the pool and off the boat,
eating lunch on the terrace, and boating around the bay. We topped it all
off with dinner at a nearby restaurant.
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Vincenzo and Paola were amazing hosts,
welcoming and generous and a whole lot of fun to hang out with. We talked
irreverently about the Catholic Church, George Bush, Prodi, and McDonalds.
Ignazio, Vincenzo's cousin, was in town on vacation from his current home in LA,
where he is the conductor of the Los Angeles Opera. Vincenzo and Paola
both speak great English too, having met and married in San Francisco. The
girls and Alessandro played and swam and put on shows for us despite the
language barrier. It was an experience that we will all treasure for a
long time to come.
Sitting on Zia the night before, we naturally
speculated about what the castle was like. We discovered quickly that it was
even more wonderful than we had imagined. Originally, the castle was just
one small asset that, along with much of the surrounding countryside and sea,
made up part of the royal holdings in Sicily, and the Barony of Solanto.
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With the Normans, the property began to be
awarded to noblemen that had distinguished themselves in the service of the
crown. The Kingdom of Sicily saw many different monarchs from a wide
variety of origins and possession of Solanto followed the same pattern.
The history of the castle itself goes back to the time of Arab domination of the
Mediterranean in the early 9th century AD. But the castle itself was
merely an afterthought, a defensive measure to protect the primary resource of Solanto, la tonnara or tuna station.
As early as the 8th century BC, the Phoenicians had established the town of
Solunto on the adjacent hillside, to support the tonnara's
activities. Tuna fishing brought steady prosperity to the area, making it
a highly sought after asset. The list of ownership is long, starting with
the Phoenicians, and going through the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs,
Normans, Spanish and numerous kingdoms of the Italian city-states. It was
even subject to frequent pirate raids by Ottoman forces during the 16th and 17th
centuries.
Tuna fishing was the largest economic activity
for much of the time. They were killed on a massive scale. The
migratory pattern of the huge fish follows a predictable path. They enter
the Med through Gibraltar, where they follow the currents along the coast of
Spain, France and western Italy, cutting west along the Aeolians to the
northwest corner of Sicily, and around the southern coast on into the eastern
Mediterranean. Huge net traps are set to herd them into the death chamber
where they were inescapably slaughtered in vast numbers. It is fascinating
to read about the laws and customs that determined how the catch was divvied
every year and how these rules changed with the various rulers.
The original part of the castle dates back to
the Arabs in the 11th century. The structure has been built, modified,
destroyed and rebuilt time and time again. It is constantly under
renovation. It is even more beautiful than a museum, in immaculate
condition with the family's personal memorabilia, photos, coats of arms,
paintings, ceramics, carpets, furniture, making it feel like a well maintained
home as well as a castle.
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The tonnara
part of the castle is used by a boating club. They hold meetings and
social functions in the huge rooms that used to house the nets and boats during
the ten months of the year they were idle. Only spring brought the mating
drive that propelled the tuna towards their breeding grounds, and past this
little corner of northwestern Sicily.
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Much too quickly, we had to leave our new
friends in Solanto and move on westward and around the corner to Trapani, where
our old friends on Cenou were waiting for us. We had a pleasant surprise
when, along with Cenou, a fellow Switch51 was there to greet us. Jean,
together with Nicolo and his family have been cruising on their boat for a year now.
Unfortunately, they were leaving the next day for the Aeolians so our
acquaintance was brief.
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The city of Trapani is one of the three corners that make
up the triangle of Sicily which gives it its ancient name Trinacria.
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One of the big fancy streets that make up downtown Trapani.
It is a huge port city, vying to become the
host of the next America's Cup. It needs a lot of cleaning up, the harbor
in particular, in order to
be a serious contender, in my opinion. Nonetheless, the city was
interesting to wander (lots of churches), and especially good as a base from
which to explore the mountaintop city of Erice.
A twenty minute walk and a public bus took us
to the base of the cable cars that run regularly 2500 feet up the mountainside to Erice.
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From high atop the
hill, the views are spectacular and a clear indication
of why the Greeks originally built here.
Strategically overlooking the northern, western and southern
coasts, it would be hard to execute a sneak attack with
lookouts at Erice.
Of course, when they weren't spending their
time defending their position on the hill, they were worshiping. The
Greeks built a temple to Venus Erycina, the goddess of fertility, and subsequent
rulers built a whole bunch of churches in this little town. This one,
built in 1314, was the most spectacular of them. The interior was restored
and drastically remodeled in 1865.
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The girls did an amazing job traipsing around
the city in the stifling heat. It is always easier when you have friends
there to play with! Of course the threat of depriving them of their daily
ice cream also works wonders.
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We have started making a plan for our remaining
time in Sicily. Our rendezvous with the Dunoyer clan grows enticingly near
and we have about 600 miles to cover between now and then. An early
morning departure from Trapani on Sunday allowed us to stop for a few hours in
Mazara del Vallo. The Arab influence is felt quite decidedly in this city
only 75 miles from the coast of North Africa. We found Arab food stores
open on Sunday, while the rest of the city was pretty much closed up tight.
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Despite the Arab influences, we saw an
overwhelming number of churches ranging from the 13th to the 18th centuries.
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Virtually every corner we turned revealed a new
church facade to look at. Ironically enough, they were all closed on
Sunday afternoon.
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Lunch and our quick
walk around town got us back underway to fulfill the
last part of The Plan for the day. Twenty miles
away lay the ruins of Selinus, perched on a small hill
alongside the sea, next to the modern day town of
Selinunte. Although the blistering hot weather is
hard to deal with when we are touring, it is a joy for
anchoring. Again, we dropped the hook within sight
of the ruins, a few hundred meters off the beach in a
nice sandy bottom, totally exposed to all directions
except north.
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A 7th century BC colony of the even older Greek
city of Megara Hyblaea further east on the island, Selinus was an important
trading center. Rivalry between other Greek colonies in Sicily led to its
decline until it was finally destroyed by the Carthaginian invasion of the
island in 409 BC. Sitting on Zia in the shadow of the ruins, it is hard to
comprehend such antiquity. Only one of the temples looks anything like it
used to, with the rest lying in piles of rubble.
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Nonetheless, we tried to imagine what the huge
complex might have looked like back in its heyday 2700 years ago. Our next
scheduled stop in Agrigento, the better known Greek ruins on the island, will
certainly build upon these speculations.
Unfortunately, the heat wave we have been
experiencing has also brought in the deadly jellyfish.
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It looked a little bit better by the time we
got back to the boat at noon, and we were able to jump in and climb out to cool
off a little before taking off for San Leone, the port closest to Agrigento.
The Plan calls for a night at anchor here, a day of exploring the ancient city
tomorrow and an overnight sail around the southeast corner of the island.
Depending on what Mother Nature has in store for us, we will visit Siracusa and
Taormina and perhaps one or two other small towns on the east coast of Sicily
before heading for Croatia no later than the 6th of August. As always, I
am saddened by the prospect of leaving, but anxious to get to our next
destination. Looking forward to a visit from friends is a huge joy for us
so this time it will be much easier.
Next Entry >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like
to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind
enough to host the website on his server.
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