MODICA, CITTÀ CHIUSA

If you are a tourist coming to Modica tomorrow for the Ferragosto holiday, you will be able to visit this,

Modica, Duomo di San Pietro

this

Modica, Duomo di San Giorgio

and this:

Modica, Chiesa di Santa Maria di Betlem

Virtually everything else, I am sorry to tell you, will be closed. This includes museums, the house of Modica's Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo and, in the countryside, the Cava d'Ispica.

Yes, it is true that if we come to another country, we have to do our best to adapt to its rhythms and I have no problem with that. However, dear Comune di Modica, you cannot continue to behave in such a way and, at the same time, blame your woes on the crisi economica and tell us how much you want tourists!

Happy Ferragosto.

MONDAY, MONDAY

This morning I had to go to the hospital to have my eyes checked:  for some time now, although I can read a book or work on the computer even without my glasses, I've been experiencing some difficulty in reading the newsbar when I watch TV. I do have a very small television, I must admit, and those of you who are used to state-of-the-art sets might wonder how anyone could see the screen, let alone the newsbar! Anyway, a few weeks ago I went to the optician to check whether my glasses needed changing and he thought I should see an eye specialist in case I had the beginnings of cataracts. [I am well aware that age does not come alone but I had hoped for a few years' grace before the cataracts caught up with me and of course, it's only natural to wonder if it might be something more sinister.]

Well, today was appointment day and, after I had paid for my "ticket" - you have to pay for outpatient appointments in Italy even if, like me, you are covered by the health service -  off I confidently strode to the hospital's new wing, as that is where my appointment card told me to go. Silly me! I should have remembered that Sicilians always ask the nearest bystander for directions, even if they have satnav, written instructions in their hand or can see a clear signpost right in front of them. They just don't trust the written word. I shouldn't have been surprised, then, that I got to the ala nuova, only to be told that the eye clinic hadn't moved in yet and I would have to go back to the old wing. Off I went again and this time I asked for directions at the counter in the lobby. I was told I would have to go to the end of the very long ground floor corridor, "where there are people waiting" but, having reached the end of the corridor without finding any people waiting or an eye department, I asked the only member of staff there for help and was informed I'd missed the department and had to go half the way back again. [Yep - I sure needed an eye test!] This time I found the department but on the door was a sign saying it had moved to the second floor, so now I was in search of a lift. Every lift I came across was marked "staff only" or "guasto" [broken] but finally another member of staff directed me to a lift hidden in a corner. Upstairs there was only one corridor and I walked its length, meeting no one and finding no oculista but on the way back I did find a porter. "Oh, this is the new wing", said he "and you want the old one. You will have to retrace your steps." 

By now I'd walked about three miles, I should think, and I wanted to cry. I do have a knee problem and I can't just keep walking like I used to. Besides, this is a hospital and most people who go there are likely to be already ill, worried or stressed or all three, so why aren't there any clear signs or some people around to help? Some of you may remember that a few years ago I spent some time as an inpatient there, so I know that volunteers appear in the afternoons. Why not in the mornings, when there are outpatients?

Downstairs I made straight for the lobby where I knew there were public lifts and luckily I was deposited right outside the eye department. I sat down to wait and the next thing that happened was that a beggar came along. He seemed pretty harmless and was wheeling a toddler in a baby buggy but beggars should not be wandering around hospitals, where people are at their most vulnerable. I suppose a young man with a toddler looks normal enough, given that relatives can visit patients in the mornings to give them breakfast, but where was the hospital security?

As always, once you are in the hands of the medical personnel here, you are treated well and receive a very thorough examination. Everything is explained to you and if you ask questions, you will receive clear and honest answers. Yes, I do have the beginnings of cataracts but nothing will need to be done in the near future. I just need a check-up once a year for the time being.

Happy with that, I thanked the staff and made for the loo. I hadn't put my eye-war-paint on for obvious reasons and I wasn't leaving without it! But vanity, this morning, was very nearly my downfall for as I left the building, I realised that one of my earrings was missing. This must have happened as I was applying my eye makeup, I reasoned so I turned to go back and my knee chose that moment to give way under me. I somehow managed to stop myself falling, limpingly retraced my steps and in the loo....... no sign of my earring. There was no sign of it anywhere else, either and, having emptied out my bag just in case, I sadly resigned myself to its loss.

When a girl needs cheering up in Sicily there is usually gelato but it's THAT time of year again:

The whole of Italy has to go on holiday at the same time and most of the bars are shut, along with nearly everything else. Come to think of it, that could explain why there were no volunteers on duty this morning and why there were only two or three people waiting when I reached the department.

At lunchtime I came home, started to get ready to have a shower and, as I was taking my bra off, there was this welcome clink of something hard on the tiled floor. Yes, I found it - or it refound me! That's the third time I've found a piece of missing jewellery down there and to do so is one of the few advantages of being voluptuous. On one memorable occasion a pendant of mine travelled from Sicily to London in my bra......

Tutto è bene quel che finisce bene. So that was my Monday. How was yours and who remembers this?

The Mamas and the Papas - Monday Monday

CHIUSA

Tomorrow is the Ferragosto [Assumption Day] holiday and Italy is already closed for business. Italians, you see, all have to go on holiday at the same time and if you suggest that maybe an institution, company, bar or store could stagger staff holidays, you are looked at with incredulity.  To quote one of my favourite writers on living in Italy, Tim Parks:

"For in Italy people are remarkable above all for their conformity, for all doing the same thing at the same time."
- Tim Parks,  An Italian Education

You would think that, after seven years here, I would have got used to the two-week shutdown around this holiday but I have not and this year, in particular, I find myself throwing my arms up in despair as I imagine Mrs Merkel might when she contemplates the Italian economy.  Perhaps it is because this year I am trying to get quite a few things done during this period and, instead of accepting that I cannot, my anger has been boiling over for the past few days:  an important item which is supposed to have been posted to me three weeks ago from Bologna has not arrived and the excuse, of course, is the "time of year";  this morning the banks not only closed one and a half hours early, "because we're prefestivo", but every ATM in Modica was down too!  Come on, guys, if you are going to close the banks a day early, at least make sure the ATMs are working!  The other reason that all this gets to me is that the barista or shop assistant might be the only person with whom someone without a family exchanges a few words in 24 - 48 hours and believe me, such pleasantries as are uttered in these circumstances are important.

However, what one has to come to terms with is that the Italians and the British have totally different concepts of what constitutes a holiday and the Italians actually think it is a time to relax.  Tim Parks, again, explains this very well in the same book, remarking that, for the British, a holiday is more of an endurance test:

"Those were holidays that made a hero of you, that made you proud of our glorious centuries of miserable weather, holidays that made you.... English."

Well, I suppose I'd better grin and bear it, just as I must have grinned and borne sand in my sandwiches, impossible deckchairs, wasps on candyfloss and sitting on the beach in a plastic mac long ago in Britain.  Only another two and a half weeks of this madness to go!

Me "enduring" a holiday in Devon,
c. 1955

Happy Ferragosto, everyone!

SABATO MUSICALE - ITALIA, ITALIA

Picture the scene:  a small Sicilian town on the last Saturday morning of Italy's two-week summer break.  It is very hot and the streets are almost as deserted as they were on the ferragosto bank holiday itself.  The few shops that are open on the modern via Sacro Cuore are offering massive discounts to get rid of their summer stock but even with these, they are empty.  In the supermarket there are only three customers and you can see that the staff are itching to get to the beach. The two cars that are illegally parked right outside a bar go unnoticed for now as our local vigile is sheltering from the sun in the perfumery and is enjoying himself chatting to the young lady assistants.  Raffaele, my hairdresser, who reopened for a few hours yesterday, had said I could go back for a comb-out at twelve today - this is the only time of year when you need to make what passes for an "appointment" - but had called an hour before to ask if I could go earlier so that he and his staff could all escape back to the Marina.  Grumpily, I go and he greets me with,  "You have the sea in your eyes" so what can a girl do but melt?

The economy continues to go down the drain, the rest of Europe panics but the Italians, who know that all things pass, are still at the beach - living.  I love you, Italy.

And I cannot let August pass without reposting the quintessential summer song.  Take it away, signor Paoli:

Gino Paoli - Sapore di sale

A FERRAGOSTO MESSAGE FROM SIMI

Hi, folks.  It's Simi here!

That Queen lady who is mummy to all those corgis is not the only one to post messages at holiday time, you know!

Well, I'll bet you've all been wondering how I cope with the heat in August:  it's not a problem really, as I've had my second summer haircut and my mummy bought me this hat.  That ole black poodle down the road is swooning away!  

My mummy says it's not a holiday today in all of your countries and that it isn't one in Wales, where we used to live.  I can't remember because every day's a holiday for me - hee- hee!

Wherever you are, fans, I hope you've had a very woofy and waggy ferragosto!

Love from

Simi xxxx woof!

"IL PRANZO DI FERRAGOSTO"

I love this film, in which Gianni Di Gregorio, as Gianni, a middle-aged man who lives with his mother, does a ferragosto deal with his apartment block administrator:  if Gianni will look after the administrator's mother for the ferragosto holiday, the administrator will forget about some of the maintenance fees owed by Gianni.  On the day, the administrator arrives not only with his mother, but also his aunt.  Gianni rises to the challenge but, exhausted, calls a doctor friend to give him a tranquilliser - and ends up looking after his friend's mother too!

It reminds me of this episode of the 1980s Richard Briers comedy series, Ever Decreasing Circles:

Ferragosto evening view, from my bedroom:

A WATER DRAMA

It's a while since we had a water drama but of course, there had to be one on the day before the most strictly observed holiday of the year - ferragosto:

At about 3.30 this afternoon the water lorry arrived to refill the condominio's cistern.  The driver rang my bell as someone has to go down and sign for the load, though his arrival just as I'd put my weekly application of fake tan on my legs caused much cursing in every language I know.  I hastily donned a beach cover-up and went downstairs, only to find that some selfish person had parked their car right across our courtyard entrance so the lorry couldn't get in.  Despite frantic beeps from the driver and my neighbour's knocking on doors, no one appeared to claim the vehicle.

The lady from the fourth floor appeared on her balcony just as the driver was saying he would have to come back on Monday, so I shouted what he had said to her and she shouted it to the man opposite, who had interrupted his siesta to come out onto his own balcony.  He, in turn,  made that hands-in-the-air, hopeless gesture to my fourth floor neighbour, who then made it to her son, who was just returning from  his fruitless knocking on doors errand, he made it to me, I made it back to his mother and we all made it to the driver, who flung his own hands in the air and drove off.

Personally, I think he should have driven in and crushed the car.  Could it be that I am still suffering from a little Anglo-Saxon impatience? 

If the water runs out tonight, we face all day tomorrow without any - in 40 C.

Buon ferragosto!

THE SOUND OF SILENCE

We are coming up to the Ferragosto holiday on Sunday, an occasion taken more seriously than Christmas with regard to time off and, indeed, one cannot begrudge the hardworking Italians their annual break at the sea.  Already Modica is like a ghost town, even during the rush hours of 5 pm when everyone returns to work and 8pm when they leave.  This is an article of mine publishhed in Italy Magazine a few weeks ago:

Sounds of summer

The sound is still faint but it is definitely there and I have heard it, at dusk, for the past week. Yes, the cigali or cicadas are back and their chorus means that it is summer in Sicily. As the summer progresses, their song will become louder and louder, reaching a crescendo in the late evening,when you have to turn the volume on your television up to be able to hear it.

And when you hear the cigali in the day, you know the temperature has soared to forty degrees or more. At the moment, I can only hear them from my bedroom, which looks out onto countryside but soon I will hear them from the living room, the “town” side of the flat and from all my windows. Sometimes I just open my balcony doors and sit, mesmerised, by their song.

The opening of balcony doors is, in itself, quite a ritual during a Sicilian summer. In Britain, unused, as we are, to the sun, we fling open all our doors and windows at the merest sign of sunshine but here you must do the opposite: if you want to keep cool, you have to keep all your doors and windows firmly shut – and that means the shutters as well – between about 9 am and 7 pm. I admit that I don’t quite follow this rule, for I have to have enough light to read and write by, but mostly I have got used to living in a sort of penumbra in the daytime.

I always know when it is seven o’clock for you can hear everyone opening their shutters and doors for the evening. You can almost hear a collective sigh of relief, too, as the cooler air is welcomed.

This is when families sit on their balconies, chat to neighbours opposite sitting on theirs and enjoy watching the world go by. Later, much later, some of them will bring a plastic dining table out and slowly partake of a delicious supper, relaxing in the evening breeze.

Further down my street there is a row of small, municipal houses and each has a little terrace. Here the lady of the house will sit, often hidden by plants and washing so that I am quite surprised when those I know call to me as I pass. They sit there for hours, fanning themselves, not reading, not writing but just looking, at nothing in particular. The Sicilians’ ability to be still with their thoughts is something I have come to admire.

A couple of weeks from now, however, most of the balconies will be empty, for almost everyone has a house at the sea or in the country and if they don’t, they have a relative who does, so that is where they go to escape the heat of the city. Some will return in September but others will stay away until November.

In August, too, most shops and stores and even bars and restaurants will close for the two weeks around the 15th August holiday and the town will become very quiet. Food stores do not close, except for the 15th itself, but many do not reopen in the evening during August. This is a habit that still drives me mad because it is hard for an Anglo-Saxon to understand why a whole enterprise has to close and I am lost without my hairdresser! “Why can’t he just put in a manager?” I wail.

But “When in Sicily you must do as Sicilians do” and I don’t get as fraught about the situation as I used to.

So the sound I most associate with a Sicilian summer is not a sound at all: it is silence. It is quite pleasant in a way.

DAILY DOINGS - 24

Another Ferragosto has come and gone, and that means I have almost survived both the summer and the silly season! The summer takes some surviving because of the heat and, for women, it entails even more worrying about one's appearance than usual. As I reported on twitter earlier, the following has become my Sunday routine: shower, epilate, shower, exfoliate, apply moisturiser and then fake tan to legs. [I am pale and it's the only way!] Then wait at least an hour for it to dry and develop a bit [while I read, pluck my eyebrows, exfoliate my face and give myself a facepack]. The "Sicilian silly season" is definitely August, when many stores shut down for 2 whole weeks around Ferragosto and others do not reopen after siesta. It's a bit churlish to want to deny the Italians, who work so hard all year round, their August break, but I do find it absurd that a chemist's can close for a whole month! Even my beloved Altro Posto bar has been closed for the past two weeks but Raffaele the hairdresser is only closing for four days this year, instead of a whole week. This, I imagine, is due to increased competition from several new hairdressing salons which have sprung up in Modica this year. I can just about manage four days without a hairdo!

The Post Office, that embodiment of "abandon all hope", is again closed in the afternoons until the end of August. And, talking of that establishment, last week a post box appeared outside it. This may be normal in other parts of the world but it seems no one had suggested it as a logical place to put one in this part of Sicily!

The Edicolè bar is only closed until Monday afternoon, and they were feeling in generous mood when I popped in for an aperitivo and an ice cream on Friday: how about this for a complimentary snack?

When I bought a kilo of grapes for 80 centesimi from our local greengrocer, also on Friday, he didn't have 20 c in change to give me, so instead he plonked another kilo of grapes into the bag! OK, I know he had to get rid of them before the holiday, but I can't imagine that happening in the UK, can you? It seems that there are some advantages to the "silly season" after all!

Now, changing the subject completely, my friend M from Girl on the Run wanted to see what accessories I would buy to go with this outfit:

Well, I finally got them, in the end-of-season sales!

Meanwhile, Modica's young people have been having a busy time down on the beaches: I'm ashamed to relate that our lovely, clean beaches have been badly littered with cigarette ends and the Comune's machines don't pick them all up. Under the clever slogan, Filtriamo la spiaggia young people have been invited to clear the beaches of this mindless pollution and have been offered a free ice cream for every 50 cigarette ends they've been able to collect today. [I must say, I wouldn't like to be the person who had to count them!] A good initiative, encouraging the young to care about their environment and allowing local makers of traditional ice cream to sponsor an environmental event or the Comune evading its resposibilities and even potentially exposing the volunteers to a health risk? I've heard both arguments here and now would love to know what all of you think.

A FEAST FOR FERRAGOSTO

What a feast at Maria and Luca's today! I'll just let you enjoy the pictures:

There was squid salad [which I had to pass on, as I can't eat fish]:

Maria had made pane condito - [bread seasoned with oil and herbs] served with fresh cheese inside:



She had also made a tomato pizza



and an onion one:

Then there was chicken, cooked by Linda. I asked her what she had put in the delicious stuffing: "Oh, everything, including marmalade", said she. I will try to get more details, reader!

Next, a 16 kg anguria was brought to the table:



There was much jolly discussion about the best way to cut it



and then it was divided:



There was also sweet Trapani melon:



After that, there was watermelon gel



and finally, torta di gelato:



Grazie, Maria e Luca!

SABATO MUSICALE

Enjoy:

Sergio Cammariere - Ferragosto

FERRAGOSTO: A MOMENT FOR "THE LADY"

As this day of celebration draws to a close in Italy, I ask you, if you can, to spare a thought for one who has had no holiday and no freedom in 14 years: Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, was, in a sham of a trial, convicted last week of breaching national security and sentenced to a further 18 months of house arrest. The regime, of course, knew that the eyes of the world were upon them and had this not been the case, I fear that the sentence would have been harsher, as it would have been and has been for others in Burma whom we must not forget.

This shows that we who live in freedom can make a difference and we can do so at this juncture by joining the call for a global arms embargo on Burma. Countries which have already called for this include the UK, the USA, Australia, France and Italy. Countries which have not yet done so include New Zealand, Canada and Switzerland. [This information is, as far as I can tell from several sources, correct at the time of writing; please correct me if I am wrong.] You can find out more about the arms embargo campaign here and how to get involved, wherever you are, here.

"The Lady" and the National League for Democracy are asking only for those freedoms which most of us take for granted:

"When we ask for democracy, all we are asking is that our people should be allowed to live tranquilly under the rule of law, protected by institutions which will guarantee our rights, the rights that will enable us to maintain our human dignity, to heal long festering wounds and to allow love and courage to flourish. Is that such a very unreasonable demand?"

- Aung San Suu Kyi, Letters from Burma [1996].

BUON FERRAGOSTO!

It's the ferragosto holiday today and and most people are in the country or at the sea. The two-week closure of nearly everything drives me mad, as ever, but you can't begrudge the Italians, who work so hard all year, their break in cooler air. Next week we begin to get back to normal and guess who'll be the first customer at Raffaele the hairdresser's when he reopens? I need him not only to "magic" my hair into behaving, but to sort my mind out!

Here is Gino Paoli with a 2006 version of the greatest Italian summer song of them all. It's a song that has meant a lot to me over the years and I dedicate it to all Italians today.

SAPORE DI SALE

THE WINDMILL THEATRE OF MODICA

You don't see wrapped sandwiches on sale here; come to think of it you don't see any ready-prepared sandwiches on sale. But if you go to a salumeria they will make them for you while you wait and this is what you get if you ask for a panino col crudo e pomodoro [sarnie with Parma ham and tomato] at the one around the corner, where Mr T... takes great pride in his work. You may, of course, choose from the many breads he stocks, all of which arrive freshly baked in several deliveries throughout the day and Mr T... always cuts the prosciutto or other cold meat to the exact size of your roll. No butter or spread is used but he will sprinkle the filling with oil for you, and season it with salt, black pepper and origano if you wish.

He does a roaring trade at lunch time and popular fillings are lettuce with or without ham, topped with wafer thin slices of provola cheese or Emmenthal [one of the few foreign cheeses eaten here] various salame meats and even sgombro [mackerel].

I was amused, this morning, to see two toddlers, obviously out for a happy day with their father, selecting their panini with great care: both knew exactly which bread they wanted and the girl ordered provola and crudo [Parma] ham with absolutely no origano, whilst her brother desired lettuce, tomato and salame with origano. The little girl even instructed patient Mr T... as to the proper height for her sandwich. How lovely to be brought up in this fresh food culture and to be so discerning at such an early age.

However much I have carped recently about erratic opening hours and summer closures, it is only fair to point out that most salumerie open at 6 or 6.30 am to attract the commuters on their way to work. Mr T..., though, has become a hero to me , for throughout the August closure period, he has shut up shop for only one day, ferragosto itself. Therefore I privately call his shop "The Windmill Theatre of Modica".

REGALI

A friend called in an hour or so ago, bearing these offerings from her garden. Thoughtfulness like this can simply make your day.

And it gets better, for a parcel of goodies from Amazon has just arrived, right on time. Want to know what I've got? I'm going to tell you anyway:

Hot Mettle by Brenda Dean: For those of you who do not know of her, Brenda Dean was the first woman leader of a major British Trade Union, the printers' union SOGAT, and, as such, she had many battles with Rupert Murdoch in the 1980s. I've always respected Brenda Dean for being a tough, intelligent and very feminine woman and I am interested in the inside story . She is now a Labour working peer.

The Islamist by Ed Husain: Ed Husain was involved in radical Islam in Britain and this is the true story of why he joined the movement and later became disillusioned. I saw him being interviewed on Sky and thought he talked a lot of sense.

Delizia! The Epic History of the Italians and their Food by John Dickie: Simply because the reviews of this intrigued me.

44 Scotland Street, Espresso Tales and The World According to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith: I have come to like AMS, having resisted his novels for a long time. They are heart-warming and well crafted and I think the character of Bertie is a wonderful creation. These books help me in that I need to read good prose in order to be able to write what I hope is good prose.

And finally a new Collins monolingual English dictionary, as my old one had decided to self-destruct. It was probably time for an updated one anyway and here's a point about dictionaries that non-linguists may not have thought about: All dictionaries have to be updated via new editions but this is happening much more frequently than it used to. When I was a modern languages student, Harrap would update their French dictionary every 8 - 10 years by bringing out supplements. Now full new editons appear from most publishers every 2 years. This is because language is changing much faster than it ever has before; whilst slang and jargon have always changed fairly quickly and there have always been new words for new inventions, dictionary compilers just can't keep up with new technological terms that appear every day!

Oh, I almost forgot: slipped into the parcel with the above was Patrizio Buanne's CD Forever Begins Tonight. I had asked the man in the nearby video / CD shop if he could get it but he was adamant that it didn't exist, though I knew that it was available in Italy, so I thought, "Bugger you - I'll get it from Amazon."

All awfully naughty, I know, but I haven't treated myself to anything from Amazon since Xmas and if you're going to order from abroad you might as well have several items to make the postage costs worthwhile. That's my excuse, anyway... Besides, this little lot should just about keep me going through the rest of the silly August shut-down of everything. Yes, I do read in Italian as well but all the bookshops are closed so what's a girl to do?!

FERRAGOSTO - 3

Today is the ferragosto bank holiday, my third since coming to live in Sicily and once again, I was lucky enough to be invited by kind friends to sit under a pair of shady mulberry trees in their garden and partake of a leisurely lunch which lasted till 4pm. The menu consisted of:

2 kinds of antipasto

pasta [with shellfish for most, with oil for another friend and myself]

veal for me

fish for the others

green salad

stuffed aubergines

bowls of juicy, cooling melon

a selection of other fruit

And I made my lemon semifreddo again [which is really Jennifer Paterson's "Suffolk Lemon Pudding"].

Oh yes, look who came too and she was such a good girl!

I stole the aubergine recipe from my friend some years ago so here it is:

Boil some aubergines for 20-30 minutes, until the skin is soft. When they are cool enough to handle, halve them lengthways and score the flesh. You can then halve them again vertically if you want to. Place them on an oiled baking tray, season the flesh and sprinkle with a little olive oil. Add chopped basil and whatever other herbs you like - Sicilians insist that aubergine and mint make a "good marriage" - some grated parmesan and some toasted breadcrumbs. Drizzle with oil. Cook for about 30 minutes at 180 C, have a look and add more oil if the mixture seems to be drying, then continue cooking at about 110 C till they look done. I serve these with a tomato and caper salad.

CHIUSI

Three bars, all closed for business. But I hope you can just see that the owner of the Capriccio has stacked his terrace furniture outside. [The Altro Posto does this when closed, too.] If this were Britain, this furniture would have been "liberated" and dispersed overnight, and the various chairs and tables would be adorning patios over a wide area of our green and pleasant land by now. I don't know whether the fact that no one has touched them is down to the innate honesty of the folk around here or to the number of eyes that are always watching everything you do. Let us be charitable and imagine that the reason is the first.

UN'INSALATA SEMPLICE

"Just a simple salad" was what I asked for at the Caffè Consorzio at lunchtime but how beautifully presented it was. Then an ice cream of mandarin, amarena [sour cherry] and coffee flavours.

Next week I shall atone for these outings, shutting myself indoors with dog, blog and books as everything will be closed for the week.

A CHANGE OF LOYALTY

Let's have a food post after all that!

The Altro Posto being closed for a fortnight, I have transferred my patronage to the Caffè Consorzio for this week. It is so peaceful there on the patio: you'd never think you were in the middle of town. Yesterday lunchtime I was served this pretty complimentary platter of bites with my aperitivo, then this maiale in agrodolce [pork which has been cooked in oil and balsamic vinegar] with salad. The pot of chips just appeared with it and who was I to argue? I remain firmly convinced that the calories from chips do not count when you are out. Italian bars and restaurants are generous with the bread and this is served so prettily here with the packets of breadsticks around the edge of the basket. [I cannot stand those British establishments where you are offered one roll or else charged for any bread you order.] A gelato misto of lemon, strawberry and peach flavours to finish and the bill came to €17.50 including drinks.

But even this oasis will be closed all of next week, because of the crazy Ferragosto disappearance of everyone and everything. I still think you have got to be seriously mad to have a bar or restaurant and close it in the middle of the tourist season but..... pazienza!