Fishy, fishy, who’s got the fishy?

It's been a while since we last posted, but we’ve been busy. We left our seaside apartment in Marina di Ragusa and traveled northeast to the second largest city in Sicily, Catania. The drive toward Catania brings you through mountain passes until finally you catch a glimpse of Mount Etna. Etna is the highest active volcano in Europe at 11,000 feet above sea level. The closer we got to Catania, the larger Etna becomes. As you can see in the picture above, Etna’s peak is covered in snow. From within the town of Catania, Etna looms large in the background.

As one online writer puts it, "At first glance Catania appears gritty and unwelcoming. However, there’s more to Catania than meets the eye. Meander down the unsuspecting passageways through its higgledy-piggledy streets and you’ll find authentic Sicilian eateries, bars, and beautiful architecture." We couldn't agree more.

Then there’s our apartment. Look at the photos on the VRBO website, here. It’s a beautifully restored palazzo with 16-foot ceilings, Renaissance-styled artwork, and a baby grand piano in the living room. With views from the front, we can see the main church’s dome in the near distance. From the classic interior of the apartment to the views out the window one could not help believing we’re in the ritziest section of the town. But oh contraire---if you look down at the street view from our apartment, it looks more like a rundown dirty inner city “hood”. The streets are covered with dog droppings, there are garbage bags placed beneath straggly trees, and all of the buildings look like they could use a good power washing.

If you look up from our front windows you see the cathedral, if you look down you see the dirty building with what we call the "rope store," it's a small shop that sells all different sizes of rope, and its open for about 12 hours a day. And finally, if you look down to the right, you'll see the houses in need of a good power wash.

But we’ve got a small grocery store nearby as well as two small bakeries and a great wine store with oak barrels of local wine where you can fill your plastic jugs with the good stuff---plus they give you a cookie each time you come in.

But the greatest, strangest, noisiest part is our neighbor, the famous Catania open air fish market. We knew when we booked this place that we were close to the market, we just didn’t know we were so close that our car is often parked in as locals double park on the street to get their daily fish and vegetables.

Cars double parked (ours is the white car parked in) - a fruit seller on the outskirts of the market - the stand cooking up some of wood fired artichokes. The underpass leads to the main market.

Walking through the market is a strange and exciting experience. You can get almost anything at the market from cheap cell phone cases to whole tunas. The fish market itself is the center of everything with surrounding streets filled with vendors of vegetables, meats, baked goods, and stands where whole artichokes are roasted over wood fires.

But it’s the center market where the action happens. Here the fish mongers sell their products by yelling and calling out the freshness and prices of the local catch. You can buy pieces of fresh fish or whole fish. The mongers will clean and scale fish for you, leaving the messy bits and pieces of fish scattered all around.

Make sure to click on the image above...it's a video of the crazy market during the height of the morning rush.

The main action takes place below the surrounding streets; locals and tourists watch from the balcony - A young man uses a technique that will be familiar to John's brother David; using herbs soaked in garlic infused olive oil to baste meat or fish. - On a quiet rainy day there aren't that many fishmongers, so the vegetable stands close in.

But this doesn’t last all day, by 2 PM the mongers pack up and a small army of workers descend on the market with hoses, brooms, and shovels to completely clean and wash the remnants of the days sales. All of this happens as a squadron of seagulls try to dive for bits of leftover fish parts. By 3:30 PM the square is quiet and clean, albeit a bit slippery.

The daily garbage truck arrives to take the leftovers as the sea gulls arrive to take what remains before the garbage truck can take it.

Surrounding and slightly above the center market are restaurants and take-away shops selling all types of Sicilian specialties (for lunch today Nancy had a cone of fried sea creatures). On our first day, our host recommended a small seafood restaurant called “mM!” within the market that sold fresh seafood (why of course!). This place was 25 feet from the craziness going on in the center market. We did have a tasty lunch with the owner/chef coming around to check on how everyone was doing.

As you leave the market and walk down the surrounding street, you come to an opening in an ancient stone wall. Once through it, you’re met with the site of a large open piazza with the Cattedrale di Sant'Agata on your right and a statue of an elephant in the square. This is our second encounter with an elephant statue in an Italian city. The last was Matera where an elephant statue created by Salvador Dali graced the main square. Here, in Catania the elephant is a symbol of good luck…and they need it considering the town has been destroyed and rebuilt 17 times because of Mt. Etna’s eruptions.

Leading to the large piazza is a street decorated with colorful umbrellas. Next is the large piazza with the elephant statue in the center. Next comes an image of the cathedral followed by one of the "smaller"churches where the famous Sicilian composer, Bellini is buried. The last image is of Bellini's tomb.

As you leave the square and travel down the main boulevard, it looks more and more like a modern city with clothing shops, restaurants, grocery stores and lots and lots of crazy drivers. Elsewhere in Italy and even Sicily, when a pedestrian steps in a marked crosswalk drivers slow down to left them pass; not in Catania, nobody slows down for anything!

Keeping with our periodic ongoing tradition of Sunday lunches out, this past Sunday we went to “Me Cumpari Turiddu.” If you’ve watched Stanley Tucci’s “Searching for Italy” series, you may recognize this restaurant from the last episode of season one, “Sicily.”

The main dining room - Roberta Capizzi, the owner and Stanley Tucci - Shooting the episode.

Having watched the episode back in Philly while planning this nomadic adventure, we made a reservation for Sunday December 11, 2022 at 1:00 pm. When we arrived, the owner Roberta Capizzi checked her reservation book but found no reservation for a Mr. Zuchero. Just when we thought we’d have to go elsewhere, Ms. Capizzi lived up to her restaurant’s motto, ““The door of a close friend is always open, and the food is really nice” and found us a table for two in a side room…which when we arrived was empty except for us. But, within minutes the room filled up with couples and families with grandparents down to month old infants.

The bread plate came as an amuse bouche with six or seven different types of tiny breads, olives and sun-dried tomatoes. Our appetizer was a cheese plate of local cheeses. For our mains, Nancy had a crispy dolphin fish (mahi mahi) and John, who needs meat periodically (over seafood) had a wonderful pork dish with a red wine reduction and some of the best potatoes in a while. Finally, we found a restaurant that not only had wine in glasses and bottles, but also ½ liter carafes---white for Nancy and red for John. Dessert too was delicious. All in all, a memorable afternoon. Thanks Stanley T. for the recommendation.

Speaking of food (don't we always?), John’s pretty much had enough pasta and seafood for a while. So, he and Nancy have been making approximations of what we like back in the USA. Recently John made hamburgers on local hard rolls with rosemary steak fries we purchased from a restaurant where we had lunch. They wrapped them in aluminum foil for us to take home. Then last week Nancy made Shepherd’s pie with ground beef (even though she tried to tell john it was horse meat, which is a local favorite in Sicily) and good old, mashed potatoes---yum! Last night John made a lemon chicken from a recipe he got at a Chinese restaurant in Laguna Beach, CA which was originally written on the back of the bill from the restaurant by the chef. And tonight, we’re having thinly sliced beef carpaccio (cooked) and served on a crispy roll with fried onions---yea! cheesesteaks in Sicily.

Yesterday afternoon and then again after dinner, we took a walk to look at the Christmas decorations in town. As you can see below, Catania goes all out with a Christmas marketplace...and a sad looking Santa checking his cell phone---probably checking in on the status of the elves.

Let’s end this post by telling you a little about our final stays in Italy. This coming Sunday we leave Sicily. We planned on driving from Catania to Tuscany, which is a 14-hour drive, when Nancy came up with an idea. Why not take a car ferry to Salerno and then drive only four hours instead of 14? So, that’s what we’re doing, the only problem is the ferry only runs certain days a week, so we must leave Catania a few days early. So, what did we do? We booked an Airbnb outside of Montalcino for two nights with a visit to Podere le Ripi winery to taste their Brunello di Montalcino. Then it’s off for a week to spend Christmas in the town of Montepulciano where they have a festival called "Christmas in Montepulciano."

Until later,

Caio

PS. Did you know that Sicily is widely known for being the most conquered island in the world? Several civilizations and cultures have inhabited the island over the centuries. That is why you’ll find magnificent renaissance architecture sitting side by side with crumbling Roman ruins…it’s all not like the places seen in the second season of “The White Lotus!”

PPS. We just learned the unofficial motto of Italians, "La Dolce far niente" - The sweetness of doing nothing.