Philadelphia to Siracusa

After Lecce, our next long stay was Siracusa, Sicily, which we had booked an Airbnb way back in August. The night before we were to leave Lecce, John received an email from Airbnb telling him that our reservation was cancelled. No reason, just cancelled. The next email from Airbnb told us that our host was no longer associated with Airbnb. At the same time, our host received an email that said, "Unfortunately, we have received negative information about the quality of this guest and are no longer able to support them as a member of the Airbnb community." Wow! Shades of John's 1999 Italian adventure. (If you don't know what we're talking about, read the article below from the Wall Street Journal dated September 1999).

Why the Hunt for Martin Frankel Dragged On.pdf

Download PDF • 90KB

And so began our days-long attempt to clear up this frustrating snafu. We finally got a message saying our suspension was cleared and that we could read the explanation by logging into Airbnb.com. The only problem was that when we tried to login, we were notified that we were locked out of our account. Around and around the labyrinth of Airbnb support and still, eight days later, John continues to be blocked from his account. Luckily, our host, Maria Teresa, was so accommodating and helped us book using VRBO. So, goodbye to Airbnb and hello VRBO. Ah yes, the idyllic life of the international nomad!

So, it’s off to Siracusa, Sicily for our next two-weeks. We’ve been trying to limit our driving times to four to five hours a day. From Lecce to Siracusa, it’s about an eight-hour drive. So, we decided to break up the drive by visiting the town of Matera, two hours away and famous for its cave dwellings. “Matera is one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in history dating back to the Paleolithic period.”1 Definitely click on this link and read about this unique, fascinating town.

Matera by day, by night, and a church carved into a stone mountain.

When we arrived, the garage attendant where we parked our car, explained how to get to our Airbnb. He mentioned that when we saw the elephant statue, we were near our place. Later we found out that Matera was hosting a Salvador Dali exhibition. The elephant in the main square was just one of the many Dali sculptures around town. On an evening walk, we also saw a Dali melting clock.

Since we arrived around lunchtime, we went looking for the restaurant that our Airbnb host recommended (remember we like long, lazy lunches!) We don’t know if you’ve ever traveled to a place with spotty Wi-Fi, but Matera is one of them. Before we left the US, we downloaded an offline Google Map of Italy. Downloaded maps work great for driving but are terrible for walking directions. And so, we walked around looking for this restaurant when finally, a bit frustrated, John pointed to a sign for a different restaurant and Nancy said, “why not?” Turned out to be a wonderful lunch of local appetizers and a carafe of local Aglianico wine with a fabulous view of the caves. Plus, we met a family of American expats sitting at the table near us. The mom and dad live and work (remotely) in Italy and were on a mini vacation showing their daughter around Italy. The daughter is in training to be a pilot at the Nellis Air Force base outside Las Vegas.

That night, we tried using Google Maps, again in walking mode to find this pizza restaurant everyone online talked about. Of course, we ended up just stumbling on it. The place is called Altrapizza, if you’re ever in Matera. Great pizza and quite a show as the pizza chef sort of tosses the pizzas into the box from a few feet away.

Our accommodation, Palazzo Enselmi, (click here to see all the pictures) was an upscale cave with history dating back to the fifteenth century.

Our Matera Cave

The next morning, we still had a six-and-a-half-hour drive to Siracusa, so we decided to break that up by staying in another town between Matera and Siracusa. It turns out Nancy found a town about halfway called Filadefia…of course we had to stop there! The town, originally called Castelmonardo, was destroyed by an earthquake in 1783 and rebuilt and named after Philadelphia, Pennsylvania---who knew? Not very big nor very populated, but when they rebuilt it, they actually made the streets straight north to south and east to west, unlike most older towns in Italy where the streets are helter skelter.

Filadelfia's Hollywood Bar - Our hotel room where the sloping beams beaned Nancy - The grid pattern of Filadelfia.

The next morning, we got on our way to Sicily. We found it amusing that the drive from Filadefia to Siracusa took almost the same amount of time as a trip from Philadelphia, PA to Syracuse, NY---about 3 hrs. and 40 minutes. Crazy coincidence.

Other than the Amalfi Coast, neither of us had been this far into the southern interior of Italy. We were both struck by how mountainous the toe of the Italian boot is. Within the Italian regions of Basilicata and Calabria there are four mountain ranges. We spent a lot of our drive passing through lots of tunnels carved into mountains and over twisty mountain passes. A beautiful drive.

We arrived at the port town of Villa San Giovanni, where we took a ferry to Sicily. Surprisingly (to John, anyway), from the ferry dock to Sicily looks to be about the distance from San Francisco to Sausalito (about 1.5 miles). We wondered why they didn’t just build a bridge! Those crazy Italians!

The ferry ready to load cars and tractor-trailers - A map showing the distance between the mainland and Sicily - The ferry in its 20 minute crossing.

Once across, we drove to Siracusa and the small island off its coast called Ortigia (Ortygia). Our apartment is in the marina between Ortigia and the mainland of Siracusa, with fishing boats lining the dock.

Looking out the french doors from our living room to the marina and mainland Siracusa.

We’re not sure why, but everyday men come to the boats, fiddle around with the nets, hang around talking to each other and smoking cigarettes, but never going out to sea. Not once since we’ve been here. We’re wondering if they’re being paid to look like fishermen for the tourists.

The apartment is very nice. Maria Teresa told us that she bought this run-down wreck and turned it into a bright and airy modern apartment…..in a very old building. She and the other tenants of the building just installed an elevator in the courtyard of the building. One funny thing is that all the pots, pans, towels, glasses, even the bathrooms are all IKEA. IKEA must be everywhere.

Since we’ve been here, we’ve been chillin, taking some walks, trips to the indoor and outdoor markets, a few lunches out, naps in the afternoon, (having fun absorbing the Italian lifestyle), dinner in, and we end the day by watching The Crown. The weather has been cool (we actually wore a sweater one night), but the days are in the mid 70’s: delightful.

We’re here for another week and then down to the most southern part of Sicily to a town called Marina Di Ragusa.

Ciao

Nancy and John