SICILY SCENE REVISITED - AROUND THE ISLAND

Continuing my nostalgic journey through Sicily Scene's archives, I began to think about the many lovely places I have visited on this ever-fascinating island.  I have no doubt about my favourite - it is the Valley of Temples in Agrigento and I especially enjoyed this visit.  One of the most unusual events I have attended was the annual Easter display of "bread arches" at San Biagio Platani and I hope to get there again one day.  Then there is the Infiorata in Noto [coming up soon], which I try to attend every year and of course I love Catania! These are but a few of the island's treasures and there is always something new, somewhere, to discover.  But I think one of the most interesting trips I have taken was this early one, so I'll repeat the first of a series of posts on it here:

On the Nelson trail - 24th January 2007

About 37 miles northwest of Catania, tucked away in the shadow of Etna, lies the town of Bronte, the dukedom of which was bestowed upon a certain Admiral Horatio Nelson by a grateful King Ferdinando [III of Sicily and IV of Naples] in 1799. A little further on still is Maniace, where the former Benedictine Abbey became known as Il Castello dei Nelson. And that is where I have been today. It is a lovely and impressive place, as I hope the photos will show - much lovelier than I had anticipated. I should like to be able to tell you that England's saviour lingered there in the sun with his Emma - and many Sicilians believe that he did - but, alas, he died without ever having seen it. The first of his descendants to arrive there was his niece Charlotte, who, reaching it after a truly nightmarish journey, decided that it was not to her taste and stayed only three days! [More the fool her!] It was later used by other members of the family but under agrarian reform in Italy in 1961 much of the land was redistributed. The Nelson family sold the castle and park to the Comune of Bronte in 1981.

There may, however, be another British connection: the Rev. Patrick Prunty or Brunty, father of another Charlotte plus Emily, Anne and Branwell, changed his name to Brontë in 1802. I like to think that he did it as a homage to Nelson then added the diaeresis for effect and the dates do tally. By the way, I am not of the Mrs. Gaskell school of thought with regard to Patrick Brontë for I do not believe that he was a monster: he saw that his children were educated, encouraged them to write and cared for Branwell tenderly during the latter's last illness. I am also of the opinion that the main reason for his opposition to the Bell Nicholls marriage was concern for Charlotte's health, and in this he was, tragically, proved right. But I digress. Let us at least hope that poor, bereaved Mr. Brontë found some comfort in his name in the winter of his life. I wonder what, if anything, he knew of the little town in faraway, sunny Sicily? He was a well-read man, so it is possible that he knew something....

I now have to confess that I made this trip the lazy way. It would not be possible to get to Bronte and back in a day using public transport, so I hired a car and a driver. This is not a particularly cheap thing to do in Sicily but it was cheaper than staying in a Catania hotel overnight and, more importantly, saved me kennelling Simi for a night. ["And I should think so, too!" she is saying as she sits beside me, waiting for her walk.] This, again, is something the Sicilians need to sort out: no one will use Modica or anywhere else as a base if they can't get around. Not everyone wants to hire a car, as even if you are used to driving in Italy, to do so here is, at the very least, challenging! The best thing that towns of Modica's size could do to encourage tourism would be to organise escorted trips to places of interest such as Bronte.

But let us return to our hero. Nelson, me old hearty, I've always thought you looked terribly lonely all the way up there on that column. So next time I'm in London, I'll sit in the National Gallery's restaurant, gaze across at you and tell you all about your Duchy of Bronte today. How's that?

More photos - and more, and more - in a minute!

Here are links to the other posts about this visit:

On the Nelson trail - 2
On the Nelson trail - 3
On the Nelson trail - 4
On the Nelson trail - 5
On the Nelson trail - 6
On the Nelson trail - 7


I hope you enjoy them.

A PIZZA FOR NELSON?

I'm not a very nutty person - well, not foodwise! - but I do like pistacchi, so when I saw that you could get a pizza containing them, I couldn't resist it. My local pizza takeaway calls this a "Bronte" pizza because, as every Sicilian knows, the best pistacchi come from that town.  Here's my "Bronte" pizza, which also contained mozzarella, tomatoes and mortadella:

Now, in 1799 Admiral Horatio Nelson was created Duke of Bronte. Click here to discover how this happened and to find out about the town of Bronte's possible connection with the British Brontë sisters.

Gateway to the Nelson Castle at Maniace

Pistacchi from Bronte

ITALY MAGAZINE ROUND-UP

Here are the links to some of my Italy Magazine articles from last week:

First of all Jean and Gino Magnone, a Yorkshire couple now living in Ragusa, tell us about their lives here. Gino also describes his arrival in Britain as a child and tells us how, many years later, he traced some members of his Italian family.

For my Tuesday travel article I looked at some great places for food shopping in ten of Italy's most visited cities.  I was so hungry by the time I finished writing this one!

For my Friday Patti Chiari column I wrote about the Nelson Castle at Maniace,  near the town of Bronte northwest of Etna.  I've written about Maniace previously on this blog but newer readers may like to learn about this piece of English history in Sicily.

Finally, you can find out here why Italy is going batty!

BOOK MEME

I have been tagged by the excellent Beaman for the book meme which is currently doing the blog rounds. As it is a literary meme, I will do it! You have to grab the nearest book to hand, turn to page 123 and write down the 5th sentence and the next 3. OK, I am currently reading the 2003 edition of Flora Fraser's biography of Emma, Lady Hamilton, Beloved Emma. To be honest, I am finding this tome to be one of those rather dreary historical biographies which describes in detail not only every meal but also almost every bowel movement of its protagonists. However, I persevere because I like reading of the Hamiltons' life in Naples at the time of the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" and, as long-term readers of this blog will know, I am fascinated by Nelson's Sicilian connection, which I wrote of last year in a series of posts beginning here. Horatia Nelson, Nelson and Emma's illegitimate daughter, is buried in the chuchyard at Pinner, [north London] where I used to live. [Poor lady - she could never bring herself to acknowledge Emma as her mother.] And this romanticised version of the lovers' story is said to have been Churchill's favourite film.

Sentence 5 on page 123 quotes Emma herself, writing of Sir William Hamilton:
"He has no diners, but what I can be of the party."
She goes on:
"Nobody comes without they are civil to me; we have always good company. "
Now Fraser takes up the narrative:

"From this proud summary, we can deduce that there were some ladies and gentlemen who preferred not to come but to be uncivil about Emma elsewhere. There had been further changes in the domestic arrangements."

I think sentence 3 here is interesting as it makes one wonder how much has really changed with regard to how both men and women are apt to treat a woman they regard as "fallen".

I don't tag but some of you may find this a pleasant meme to do.

Note to my students : the first two sentences quoted from the book are written in an 18th century English style which you should not copy!

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, GOT THE FRIDGE MAGNET

Whenever I visit a new place, there are two things I want to bring back with me: a book about it and a fridge magnet. I have bought fridge magnets in Sicily at one or two of the more famous tourist attractions, such as the Valley of the Temples at Agrigento and the Greek Theatre at Syracuse, but in general Sicilians have not realised what tourists want as souvenirs. Here in Modica the magnets can be found in some shops in Modica Bassa and I have bought “Sicily” , though not “Modica” magnets in the local ironmonger’s up here but that is hardly a store that your average tourist is going to seek out, is it? When I did the Nelson Trail earlier this year, in the town of Bronte I did find some books but, although you could buy all sorts of articles made out of Etna ashes, I could not find one with the words “Bronte” or “Castello di Nelson” on it. Is it so very difficult to carve or engrave the name of the place onto an object?

When my furniture and books arrived from Britain, Gina, who was helping me unpack the boxes labelled “kitchen” had only just got over the amount of cookbooks I had when, poor woman, she came across the magnets! “Qua c’è un altro!” [= “There’s another one here!”] she kept exclaiming for the rest of that day. My other Italian women friends gazed in amazement at my fridge-freezer , proudly displaying its collection of decorations, the first time they visited as they are used to perfect, impersonal kitchens with everything tidied away. “Ma è arrivato così?” [= “Did it arrive like that?” ] asked Irma and I explained that I had personally wrapped each one in bubble –wrap, not entrusting this task to the removal men. [I love bubble wrap! Apart from stuffing it in bras for blog photos I always line my suitcase with it when travelling: thus I have a supply at the ready to protect any glass or china I am going to buy. Gina was actually going to throw some away during the unpacking and we had a tug of war!]

I’m quite fond of my fridge-freezer and the freezing compartment is bigger than that which most Italian women have as they buy few frozen foods and do not, as a rule, freeze portions of dishes that they make. In Britain I used to keep the fridge temperature at 2 C but here it refuses to go lower than 3. And if I make a mistake and leave the fridge door open an instant too long when loading the fridge in summer, up soars the temperature immediately and it takes hours to come down again. If I have to replace the appliance – and I hope I don’t for a good while yet – I am going to get one which does not show the temperature on the outside so that I can’t worry about it!

My search for fridge magnets continues everywhere I go but if I am with my Italian friends they no longer look at me questioningly: they have accepted the fact that I am quite mad!