Zafferana and Etna

Greetings:

For those of you who have been following the blog you can put your own caption on this one of Chris rapturing in the Kictken:


Well, it is the second week and our heroes still cannot get it together for touring early. The sun is shining on the terrazzo; Etna is very clear; is the laundry dry yet on the clotheslines; let’s have some breakfast; are you done with the bathroom yet?

Upon posting the next chapter of the blog in Giarre we have hit prime time in Sicily – 1PM – everything is closing – you can talk to God later. Never-the-less we headed for Zafferana Etnea to boldly head for Gini and Chris versus the volcano. (Gini-“We want to increase our…height? What is it?”; Chris: “Width?! No? Ah, altitude; Gini:”Yeah, that’s it!””)

Zafferana was bigger than we expected and boasted a fine duomo on Piazza Umberto:


As you can see this is looking uphill, while if you turn around and look down the hill you will see the town’s public garden:



The tourist office was of course closed for midday rest so we decided to fill the remaining hour with some lunch; maybe some pizza. Well we fell into a nice restaurant and the next thing you know we were being served some house wine with macaroni, tomato sauce with meat and mushrooms and some excellent bread. This was followed by some delicious lamb chops grilled with rosemary and some kind of wonderful sauce. Of course we had to finish with a strawberry tart and some coffee.

The waiter congratulated Chris on his Italian while Chris denied he understood anything. We noticed that one went up to the cash register to pay. However of the three parties that had been eating, the first party had spent about a half hour at the cash register immersed in lively conversation and the second party was well into their half hour. We waited patiently after we asked if we could pay and they brought the bill over but did not take any payment because, of course, you did that at the register.

The major domo was a twin for Skip Hull. He and our waiter had befriended us at this point and when Chris went over to the register to pay, the waiter poured Chris an orange liqueur in appreciation of our business. Chris said he thought the waiter said it was made from oranges that were not used for eating. As Chris brought it over to Gini to try the previous party caught our eye and Chris said good afternoon in Italian. The next thing you know it is now our turn to be immersed in lively conversation. One of the couples spoke English very well and exchanged stories with us about the United States and their three visits centered around visiting his sister in New York as a launching point for San Francisco, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. He really liked Las Vegas.

It felt great to just hang out and chat with everyone; mostly in English but also with a lot of broken Italian thrown in. When Chris began to question our dedication to investigating historical sites Gini summed up the situation with f--- the historical sites this is too much fun!

Eventually we did hit the tourist office and headed further up the slopes. Again pictures cannot describe the experience. After about five or six kilometers of winding road all vegetation disappeared and there were only lava fields:


The most recent eruption had been 2002 and not 1993 as we had first thought. It wiped out the ski area and some of the road to Zafferana. The up side of all this is that they grow an amazing variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and support sheep and cattle.

The temperature quickly reminded us of New Hampshire as we approached about a mile in altitude.

Here are two pictures taken from the same spot. One is looking up and then Chris turned around and took the opposite view.

There is a better sense of the lava fields in this shot. The downward perspective shows why the sun is shining so brightly since we were above the clouds:

Darkness set in as we spiraled down the mountain into Giarre’s rush hour. A simple meal of caprese and lemon risotto will have to suffice tonight.

Buona notte.