Arrive in Ortigia after 4 fab days spent with Manu and Sue at Lake Garda. We stayed at a B+B called La Tinassara which boasted the grumpiest manager since Basil Fawlty. He refuses to allow his guests to take sugar in their coffee. He won't help carry baggage. Surely a reflection on the way he sees life - though the irony is unmistakable. Apart from Giuseppe's various nonsensenses, Tinassara was a lovely place to stay - cool, rustic rooms, simple surrounds and pretty central. We battled to get a really great meal - and the service was pretty much lackadasical wherever we went. Save the place where I got food poisoning from the vitello tonnato. That host was genial and welcoming. The subsequent genuflection in the bathroom was not. But I recovered and we added it to the list of things to laugh about. A list that was long and varied - no sense of the 20 years that had passed since we we were all last together.
My apartment in Ortigia, which is the old centre of Syracusa, is in a small alley off Via Giudecca. Which, as the name suggests, was the Jewish ghetto in Syracusa. My block is one of the safest in the city - 3 Mafia Capos live here. Right over the alley from me. And I hear them having dinner each night. Big, loud, rambunctious meals. One of the Capos is a woman. She inherited the job from her eldest son who had followed his father and two brothers to an early grave - by way of the job. Apparently she runs her branch of 'la famiglia' with an iron hand. Though she won't tolerate women being picked on. One local legend has it that she returned a handbag, stolen from an elderly English woman by two locals on a Vespa. And not a thing was missing.
The mafia are apparently moving into more legitimate pursuits - some call them 'mafia bianca' - the white mafia. Though apparently, rather like Mae West - they tend to drift.
I have spent the last two days walking around Ortigia. There is an fabulous cathedral here - moved from Syracusa mainland to prevent it from being sacked by the Visigoths. My landlord Kevin, a retired lawyer from LA, took me on a 4 hour tour last night. It was fascinating - he knows the entire history of this island. The cathedral was adapted from a Grecian temple dedicated to Minerva. So you have classic Grecian columns lining the outside of the cathedral - 24 in total - which were transported onto Ortigia on barges specially designed for the purpose. (I should mention that Archimedes lived here - so there was some precedent.) Yet the inside of the church is all Roman Catholic. I love the pragmatism of it all.
I haven't experienced any of the fabled Sicilian machismo here except for a moment at the market the other morning. I was buying tomatoes from one stall when the owner of the stall next to me started to hiss - rather like calling a cat. I ignored him and he grew louder and louder. Suddenly I heard a voice yelling at him in Italian and turned to find an elderly lady, complete with osteoporosis, stick and shopping basket, telling him to stop immediately. He stopped immediately.
Tomorrow I am going on a day trip to three villages that are considered foodie destinations. I am taking the bus. Daniella at the ufficio turistico was horrified to hear I was hiring a car.'Perche?', she asked 'take the bus, we all do'.
So you'll find me at Piazza Archimede at 7.30am tomorrow morning waiting on the #20 if you want to join me. Failing that - watch this space.
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