ONLY IN ITALY

The European Green Pass, available to EU citizens or legal residents who have completed their Covid vaccination cycle, tested negative to a molecular or antigen test or been cured of Covid, seems to me an excellent idea and I am very grateful to have mine. It can be carried in a paper version or simply downloaded to our phones, with a QR code which has to be scanned for entry into bars and restaurants (except for having a quick coffee at the bar counter) and public venues such as museums and theatres.

However, like all good ideas, it is only good insofar as it works and many bar owners and restaurateurs have been pointing out possible problems, the first being, who is going to do the scanning? Some small bars or restaurants might have to employ an extra person to do it. Secondly, it was initially thought that the person scanning the code would also have to ask the client for proof of identity, which the  restaurateurs objected to vehemently because, they understandably claimed, they are not police. The government quickly clarified that this measure would not be necessary but would remain an option.

However, now another problem has emerged, for the green pass is required only to eat or drink inside the bar or restaurant, not outside, but where, in the height of summer, do most clients, especially tourists wishing to experience the Italian lifestyle, wish to eat? Exactly - outside. Fearing that all the outside tables at their establishments would quickly be taken, thus driving away business from clients not wishing to eat inside, some proprietors are asking clients who have the green pass to eat inside, whether this is their wish or not. I can understand the restaurateurs' position, because their sector has been very heavily hit since March 2020, but the green pass holders are saying, with some justification, that they are now being penalised for being vaccinated.

A few weeks ago, before the advent of the green pass and when Sicily was in a yellow zone with light Covid restrictions, all clients wishing to sit down had to do so outside. Now this is a problem for me because I am asthmatic and cannot tolerate smoking, so I feared that, after so long, I would not be able to visit my local bar. However, they have a veranda ( which we would call a conservatory) area, which is classed as outside but smoking is not allowed, so that solved the problem for me and I still sit there now that we are in a white zone (very few restrictions). 

Cases, however, are increasing, which was probably inevitable with tourism, general opening up and a reluctance among elderly people to have the vaccine, but nobody wants to cancel the white zone in the tourist season. Instead, a system has been created whereby not only the number of cases and the number of intensive care beds occupied in a given location are looked at weekly by both regional and national government, but also the number of people vaccinated in that location. Modica has thereby escaped further restrictions this week, but 55 Sicilian comuni have been placed under these, many in nearby Siracusa Province and five here in Ragusa Province. We are already holding our breath for next week. Meanwhile, there are a lot of very frustrated bar and restaurant clients and proprietors of those establishments who are at their wits' end. They are only, after all, trying to save their businesses, even if upsetting vaccinated clients may not be the wisest way of doing so!

Typical Sicilian summer bar breakfast
of granita and brioche

THE END OF SUMMER

Summer has officially ended and, whilst I am not a beachy person and rejoice in everything at last being open again, I will be sorry to see the end of the gelato season and of its companions cremolate and granite.

Left to right:  granita di mandarino; cremolata di gelsi (mulberry); granita di pesche e fichi d'India
(peaches and prickly pear, the latter being a late summer addition to the granita repertoire)

My favourite peaches,  pesche tabbacchierie, get larger and less sweet as August ends but then these delights appear:

Centre:  frutta di Martorana
Right: "cakes" of cotognata (quince paste)

Finally, I cannot let the summer end without sharing this with you:  the other day, a Sicilian friend said he had spotted a British man coming out of the B&B opposite his house. I asked how he had known the man was British.

"Because he was wearing sandals and socks", came the reply.

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A NEWCOMER

This is Lino, who last week arrived at Casa Natia and I know you'll all want to welcome him to the world. Isn't he cute?

Casa Natia is run by my friends Giorgio and Giovanna and you can read all about it by clicking the link.  Why not take your next holiday there and meet Lino and his chums?

Booking details are here.

Casa Natia on facebook

TOWERING COMPETITION

At the beginning of April I wrote that Sambuca di Sicilia in Agrigento Province had, in a TV poll, been named the most beautiful village in Italy, much to the consternation of the inhabitants of Cervo [Liguria], whose beauty I am able to vouch for.

The towers of  San Gimignano

Three weeks after this announcement, however. the Spanish newspaper El País ran its own poll and named San Gimignano in Tuscany as the most beautiful borgo in Italy. I have been to San Gimignano two or three times and it is certainly impressive but I would say it is more majestic than pretty. It also has a torture museum which caused me several sleepless nights after my last visit!

Not having been to Sambuca di Sicilia - a state of affairs I hope to put right in the near future - I couldn't say which of the three villages is the loveliest but the competition, like the Sicilian weather, seems to be hotting up.

Me in San Gimignano in the 1970s - sorry about the fashion!

San Gimignano has been the setting of, or has featured in, several well-known films, notably Tea with Mussolini in 1999:

SUPPER WITH GIORGIO AND GIOVANNA

On Monday evening my friends Giorgio and Giovanna, who own Casa Natia, were expecting their first guests there and I was delighted to be invited to join the welcome party.

Giovanna and her friend had been working all day making culinary delights such as scacce [focacce] and I can honestly say I'd never seen so many focacce in one place at one time!  These were filled with cauliflower, ricotta, sausage and ricotta, aubergine and tomato, tomato and onion  - and I'm sure there were one or two more fillings that I've forgotten to mention!  There were also girelle biscuits and of course, Giovanna's homemade cannoli:

This was the welcome basket for the lucky guests:

You can read more about Casa Natia here.

Casa Natia on facebook

A TALE OF TWO VILLAGES

The Sicilian village of Sambuca di Sicilia [Agrigento Province] had an extra reason to celebrate at Easter when it was named the most beautiful village in Italy in the TV Borgo dei Borghi competition. This result represented a hat trick for Sicily as Gangi had won the title in 2014 and Montalbano Elicona in 2015.

Situated near Sciacca, Menfi and Selinunte and with 6,000 inhabitants, Sambuca di Sicilia was a Sicanian stronghold and boasts impressive churches, a still discernible Saracen district and the remains of a Roman aqueduct. Its "signature dish" is minni di virgini, little cakes in the shape of a woman's breast.   

I've never been to Sambuca di Sicilia but will take the word of honorary citizen Laura Boldrini, currently President of the Italian Chamber of Deputies [lower house] as to its charms. Laura Boldrini was elected to Parliament on a Sicilian list and also has links to Sambuca di Sicilia from her former role as spokesperson for UNHCR.  The village has been particularly welcoming to migrants.

By all accounts there was quite a party there over the Easter holiday, with everyone making plans for the expected influx of tourists following the poll result. The villagers' jubilation, however, was not shared by the inhabitants of Cervo Ligure in Northern Italy, a village which had been excluded from the competition at the last moment due to alleged irregularities in the decisive online vote.  I have been to Cervo a couple of times and can confirm that it is lovely.

Then today, less than a week after the competition result, this happens:  seven Mafia-related arrests in Sambuca di Sicilia. Oh, dear!  If I were a resident of Cervo, I think I would be even more unhappy and if I were the Mayor of Sambuca di Sicila I would be wondering how on earth I was going to get my village out of this one! 

It is easy to criticise so it is perhaps worth pointing out that Sambuca di Sicilia is to be admired for granting honorary citizenship to this brave lady too.

Me in Cervo, 1980s.

A MARKETING MASTERPIECE?

Originally shown at Milan Expo and published on Vimeo in September, the video below has now, with much fanfare, been uploaded to YouTube and is being hailed here as a masterpiece. It is certainly a break with traditional clips promoting Sicily and has been conceived with social networks in mind. The target market is Northern Europe, where people are known to start planning their holidays in January.

I'd very much like to know what all of you think before I divulge my own opinion but I do want to congratulate the Comune di Ragusa for having the courage to do something in a new way and I wish them every success.

Ragusa - easy to reach, hard to leave

Another, shorter version [1m.05] is also available on YouTube. The director is Riccardo Lupo.

CAPTURED IN MODICA

The other day I was with a student when I happened to look up and saw not one, but six worried faces peering in at my window.  Both student and I hurried outside to see what was the matter, by whIch time at least four other people had joined the impromptu party. 

But what was happening on the steps behind them? To my astonishment, I could see a tall, perplexed-looking gentleman in shorts who was obviously, given his blond hair and pallor - which admittedly might have turned an even “whiter shade of pale” after he had  been propelled up the steps by another posse of six – not Sicilian.  The posse stopped when they saw me and  gave the poor gentleman a little push towards me. 

“He’s English and he’s lost”, they explained to me in Italian.  I asked my compatriot how I could help him and he explained that he had just been standing in the street trying to get his bearings when the group of eager-to-help Sicilians had come up to him and gestured to him to follow them. He was then swept along amid much enthusiastic noise.  He said all he really wanted was a map and I conveyed this information to the “helpers.”  That did it!

“A map?” “Yes, a map!” chorused the ever-growing crowd.  Well, reader, why on earth would you want a map when there were all these locals ready to direct you [though not, of course, to anywhere you actually wanted to go]? 

“Yes”, I confirmed. “He wants to go sightseeing and he needs a map.”

There followed an extremely loud and excited confabulation about where our Anglo-Saxon wanderer should get his map and suggestions included the idea that he should go to Modica Alta [high above most of the tourist sights and difficult to navigate if you don’t know it, facts which, in the opinion of Modicans, make it much more interesting] because “my wife’s third cousin runs a newsagent’s there”. 

While all this was going on I, being a spoilsport, gave the stranger directions to Modica Old Town and also to the nearest bar, where I knew they had maps.  I must say he looked very relieved. No doubt I will meet him again one day, still dazed and hopelessly lost in Modica.

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.

OWN GOAL IN TAORMINA

As the Italy squad leaves tomorrow night for Brazil - where I understand a few footie matches are to be played over the next month - it is to be hoped that own goals will be avoided.

This, I'm afraid, was not the case in Taormina last weekend, when those who really want to destroy Sicily's tourism industry had a field day, leaving incredulous tourists gasping and swearing never to visit Sicily again. The cause? A new "rule" under which people wishing to visit the town's famous Greek theatre can only purchase entry tickets there if they happen to have the right money, namely eight euros. Change, explained a ticket clerk, curtly and in dialect, would not be given. When a Sicilian man in the queue protested, he was told that he could have a phone number which he could call to complain.

Come on, Taormina - end this farce now!

Greek theatre, Taormina

SOME GOOD NEWS FOR POZZALLO

Pozzallo, so often in the news these days as an arrival point for migrants or in connection with migrant tragedies, had something to celebrate yesterday when its beach again won the right to display the prestigious blue flag. In what must have been an enormous blow to the town, Pozzallo had lost its bandiera blu last year, so it was good to read that it has got it back.

The bandiera blu is awarded annually by the Foundation for Environmental Education [FEE] to over 3,850 beaches and marinas in 48 countries. Water quality, safety, environmental management and education, information and services are among the criteria.

In Sicily seven locations are listed this year and they are:

Vulcano and Lipari [Aeolian Islands]

il lido di Signorino [Marsala]

Ispica

Marina di Ragusa

Pozzallo

Menfi [Agrigento]

In Italy as a whole Liguria was awarded the most blue flags in 2014, Tuscany is second and le Marche is third.  

Some newspapers in Sicily are commenting that seven flags are not many for a place with so many beaches and that the island really ought to have done better. Well done, Pozzallo, all the same!

Pozzallo

CAUGHT NAPPING

Duomo di San Giorgio, Modica

At the end of March, I wrote that there seemed to be some hope for Modica's prospects as a tourist venue because at last both the Council and local tour operators had realised the importance of keeping tourist sites open at times when people are actually likely to come.

How disappointing, then, to learn that, although at least 40,000 tourists visited the city over Easter, they could not find help or information because the tourist office was closed. Why? Because it is staffed by council employees, who had taken it for granted that they would not have to work on the bank holidays. Most shops in the old town had also closed on Easter Sunday and Monday [Good Friday is not a holiday in Italy] and at the moment, the newly-formed tourism consortium is being blamed for its "lack of planning" in not having foreseen both situations. Strangely, I am not surprised.

Modica's two cathedrals and the Church of Santa Maria di Betlem - the one with the famous crib -  were, however, open and I suppose this fact represents some progress.

There have also been complaints because the promenade at the Marina di Modica had not been cleaned before the holiday but, according to the new director of the Modica retailers' association Ascom, this does not matter because the Marina is only used by locals. Hmm - I wouldn't be so sure of that!

Come on, Modica - wake up!

HATS OFF TO MARCO

As a linguist, I'm always emphasising the importance of communicating with the people one is trying to attract to one's business, product or city in their own language and of making an effort to do it properly [which will probably involve employing a qualified, mother-tongue interpreter or translator, not using the awful translator sites]. 

Hats off, then, to Marco Zambuto, Mayor of the lovely city of Agrigento, for this advert in which he says a few words in Chinese himself at the end.  Mr Zambuto has not forgotten to invite the rest of us to "invade" his city as well!

Thanks to Corriere della Sera:

MISSING THE BUS

Public transport, as Modicans would be the first to admit, does not work well in this town and I have often lamented the fact that, whilst I can get a bus from Modica Bassa to Catania and arrive with no trouble in less than two hours, it sometimes takes almost as long to get from the Sorda district of Modica where I live to Modica Bassa in the first place.

Therefore, whenever I go to Catania, I feel as if I'm in paradise as soon as I see a city bus. It feels normal! But oh, dear, what is going on? It seems that the Catania bus company is not doing well, the reason being that over 60% of its passengers do not bother to purchase tickets and a further 30% of those who are fined for this omission do not pay that, either.  The problem, it is reported, is widespread in southern Italy but less so in the north, where only 30% of passengers habitually travel without tickets. This, we are told, is not because northern Italians are more honest, but is due to a basic mistrust of bus services among southerners, dating back to a time when the service offered was, indeed, poor, even in large cities like Catania.

In order to combat the problem, more ticket inspections are promised in Catania from April but I would like to suggest another solution: make the system for buying tickets easier! Granted, it is mostly local people who use the city's buses but a stranger or a tourist is likely to be very perplexed at the lack of information about where to buy tickets and it is not obvious to someone from another country that you can buy them in most bars and tobacconists.

Once I found myself stranded on the outskirts of Catania and needed to get into the city at a time of day when everything was closed. I boarded a hopeful-looking bus but, being British, became so terrified of an imminent ticket inspection [despite the driver's assurances that the inspectors don't work between 1 and 4 pm] that I got off three miles from my destination and walked.

Make the ticket-purchasing points more obvious, Catania - and it would help enormously if they were actually open as well!

The Hollies - Bus Stop

RED FACES IN POLAND?

From red faces in Napoli earlier this week to red faces in Poland - or at least, there ought to be some!  The publishers of a new Polish guidebook to the island have caused much offence to all decent Sicilians by including the Mafia bosses Bernardo Provenzano and Salvatore [Totò] Riina in a section entitled "Eminent Sicilians", reports La Sicilia.

Whatever were the authors thinking of? How did the editors, employees of a publishing house in the city of Gliwice, let this pass? Right there, on the same page as the entry on the author Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is a long entry on Provenzano and Riina appears alongside the Modican Nobel laureate Salvatore Quasimodo. Do the compilers really imagine that the island counts these criminals among its greatest citizens?  Furthermore, do they think people want to come here to follow their trail? What about Sicily's creativity, cuisine, history and outstanding beauty? One can only hope that Poles reading this guidebook have the sense to throw it into the nearest bin, where it belongs.

In the next few days there is to be a conference on Sicilian tourism in Taormina and among the delegates will be the Sicilian Region's Councillor for Tourism, Michela Stancheris.  You can bet that this book will be on the agenda!

MESSINAWOOD

Looking across the Strait of Messina

Here, at last, is some news to cheer Sicilians up and boost tourism on the island: The messinese actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta, along with Massimiliano Cavaleri, president of the cultural association Prima Stella, has come up with the idea of creating a "Walk of Stars", inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame, along the shores of the Messina Strait.

The idea is to put Messina back on the film map of the world and celebrate its cinematic heyday in the fifties and sixties. At that time, film stars from Italy and beyond would come to the Rassegna Cinematografica Internazionale di Messina and let themselves be seen there as they do now in Hollywood, Cannes and Taormina, where the Festival was relocated in the 1970s. The project, which looks to the future, too, has won support from all quarters of the Messina Council and Port Authority and architects have already been appointed.

It is envisaged that there would be a permanent commission to choose which stars would be honoured and now two star designs are being considered: a traditional star to be inserted into the existing paving or a three-dimensional design with room for some biographical details about the film star it represents.

I have just one tip for you, Messina:  if you don't want a certain politician lobbying for a place on the Walk, keep calling it the "Walk of Stars" and not the "Walk of Fame"!

ADVICE FOR ITALIAN TOURIST BOARDS

The Etna area, so proud, a few weeks ago, to have become a UNESCO World Heritage Site , has been given a definitive thumbs down by tourists because of a perceived lack of cleanliness there. A dearth of decent toilet facilities also featured high on the list of tourists' complaints. Something, it has been recognised, must be done but before the whole of Italy closes down for the "silly two weeks" around ferragosto [Assumption Day], I have some other suggestions [which some areas will need to heed more than others] for Italian tourist boards:

1. Yes, Italy, you need good toilet facilities at tourist spots. Tourists are not in a position to "wait till they get home" or even to their hotel and they want to be able to relieve themselves in clean surroundings without an interminable wait. Note to Sicily: If the tourists are women, they will also expect the toilet to have a seat!

2. Still on bathrooms, I'm really sorry if some tourists have taken things from or treated yours disrespectfully. The majority, however, have no intention of doing this and to be instructed how to behave in crappy, curt English scrawled on scruffy notices is hardly welcoming.

3.  It is not normal, in most other countries, to see overflowing rubbish containers in the street but having them emptied here depends on your town councils paying their refuse collectors, which is quite a normal thing to do elsewhere. People even get paid every month, without question. So put some pressure on your councils!

4.  Bus stops need to be clearly indicated as do the locations for buying tickets.

5. Tourists need easy transport links from large and small towns to nearby tourist attractions. They do not expect to have to take a taxi or to pay an exorbitant fare for one!

6. Not everybody is capable of climbing 500 steps to get into every church they see.

7. In the rest of the world, tourist offices exist to give tourists information. That is their function! They are also OPEN during the peak tourist season. Incidentally, the rest of the world does not close down for most of August.

8.  If you're going to use English, get it checked by someone who is a native speaker or an English teacher and preferably both. What the hell is "next opening" supposed to mean, for instance? I have recently seen an advertisement in English for a house built in the year "800" [which to an English speaker means 800 AD] when what was meant was obviously the nineteenth century. OK, I'm British and therefore precise but even an Italian would have to admit that there is quite a difference here!

9.  A  "Bed and Breakfast" and a self-catering house or apartment are two completely different concepts - yes, they are! A British or American  person does not expect to have to prepare his or her own breakfast in a "B&B".

10. We do still love you, Italy but a little consideration of tourists' needs would not go amiss!

A QUESTION

Image: http://www.wpclipart.com/

I am moved to ask this question because, much as I love Sicily, there are times when I think I am getting old, going mad and losing my grip on the modern world all at the same time, so here goes:  if you were to see a crowd barrier on the edge of a pavement, would you walk inside it on the pavement or outside it on a busy road?

Seeing one such barrier on Catania's main shopping street, Via Etnea on Tuesday, I walked inside it, on the pavement and was promptly yelled at by a workman on some scaffolding above.  Now, as it is my habit to look where I am going instead of above my head when walking, I hadn't seen the scaffolding and neither had several other people walking in the same direction.  Asked by our literally highly-strung workman what I thought the crowd barrier was for, I was tempted to shout back that most people would imagine it was there to save them from death at the wheels of speeding vehicles on a dangerous corner but, as it's difficult to hold a discussion with someone four floors above you, I remembered my "de-escalation" classroom skills and walked on, reminding myself that some Sicilian situations are better left alone.

Image:  Wikipedia

Then I reflected that Italy as a whole is full of potentially embarassing pitfalls as there are all sorts of ludicrous rules dreamt up by local bureaucrats and which an innocent foreign tourist cannot possibly be expected to know about or, as in the Catania incident, nobody stops to think that what may be obvious to a local is not so to someone else. Many years ago, in the Laurentian Library in Florence, a custodian shouted at me for walking on the floor instead of the carpet.  Why had I done so? Because a Brit would automatically assume that it was the carpet that was being protected.  It was a mortifying incident for someone who respects libraries as much as I do and, as in Catania, all that was needed was a little imagination and a notice.  However, as grumpiness often seems to be on the job specification for museum and church wardens here as elsewhere in Europe, I see little hope of reform. 

Next time I go to Catania I might just have that argument with the workman....

GOING POTTY - 2

Visualizzazione ingrandita della mappa
Click top arrow to see proximity of Città del Vaticano

Following Friday's story of the policeman arrested for growing 17 cannabis plants in his barracks, today we learn of a 21-year-old man from Rome, with previous convictions, who was growing nine marijuana plants on his balcony in via delle Fornaci, a stone's throw from the Vatican City.  A stray branch, blown into the street, had alerted police.  

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Going potty in a different way were the 100 or so unfortunate passengers, including both Sicilians and Norwegians,  who landed at Palermo's Aeroporto Falcone e Borsellino on a flight from Oslo on Monday afternoon:  upon leaving the plane, they were led into a room next to the Customs post where they were abandoned, in a temperature nearing 40 C and with no openable windows, doors or air conditioning, for at least 30 minutes.  The bus that should have transported them to "Arrivals" never arrived and when some of the passengers tried to go back out through the door by which they had entered the room, they were forced back by baggage handlers because they were setting foot on the runway.  

By this time the elderly passengers were desperate to sit down - there were no seats in the room - the babies and children amongst them were becoming distressed and other passengers urgently needed to use a restroom.  Others were anxious about missing connecting flights.  Several tried to call for help on their mobile phones but no help was forthcoming.  

Finally, after some of the passengers had banged loudly on the locked glass doors and shouted at the tops of their voices, a man in uniform arrived and opened them.  However, recognising him as the same official who had led them into the room in the first place and then forgotten them while he spoke on his mobile phone, several passengers became angry with him and one, who took a photograph of him, was accused of insulting him.

Come, come, Palermo :  this is hardly the way to encourage tourism, is it?

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SICILY IS 6th BEST ISLAND

Ortigia, Siracusa

Sicily is sixth in the ranking of the world's best islands in Travel and Leisure Magazine's 2011 World's Best Awards. According to the list, the most popular island for tourism is Santorini [Greece] followed by Bali in second place, Cape Breton Island [Nova Scotia] in third place, then Boracay [Philippines] and the Great Barrier Reef Islands [Australia] in fourth and fifth positions respectively.  Well done Sicily, which moves up from seventh place in 2010.

Marco Bevacqua, the Sicilian  president of UFTAA, warns against complacency, however:  signor Bevacqua points out that although tourism statistics are better for Sicily this year, they are only better when compared with the past few years of the economic downturn and are not as they were before.  He also reminds the travel industry that one of the reasons for the increase is that many tourists do not want to visit North African or Arabian countries at the moment.

Travel and Leisure Magazine has also published a list of the ten best tourist cities in the world:  Bangkok heads the list with Florence in second position and Rome in third.