SIRACUSA (SYRACUSE)
Actually, on Monday, we rested and I processed photographs and spent some time at the beach. We put off renting a car until Tuesday, and when the red Fiat Panda was delivered to our hotel on Tuesday morning we noticed on starting out that there was a thumping sound in the front end, but the car drove fine on the interstate until we were near Catania, half way to Siracusa, when suddenly the thumping became louder and the then with a crashing sound the front end collapsed with the left wheel bent out from the car. Luckily, in the wild traffic, we were in the right lane and luckily Tom was able to pull off before we got smashed into from behind. And there we were, immovable. We called the car rental company and sent them a photo of the car and waited for an hour until the woman who had signed the car over to us appeared with another car and we were on our way.
Siracusa, 60 miles down the coast from Letojanni, is another ancient city with ruins of a Greek Apollo temple and a huge Duomo or cathedral and much more that we didn’t get to see. The parking lot before the old city was lined with tour buses and the city jammed with tourists dressed in the same outfits as in Milan and Taormina. Again I was photographing ancient streets line with elegant tourist shops and elegant tourists and another cathedral. We walked and walked and had a great pasta lunch in the square in front of the Duomo. But I found I was getting weary, not just my knees but with being a tourist looking at tourists. Where was the rural Sicilian countryside and villages that I had imagined. I guess I’ll have to come back another time.
It turns out that the high point of my visit to Sicily was meeting the folks from small town Marshall, just up the French Broad River from Asheville, and it is the people from Marshall I will remember, as well as tourist Sicily, who will make make this trip memorable.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 