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Another beautiful day. Happy birthday to Diana......
We pack up and say our goodbyes to Signore Castellana...he has given us two beautiful prints of Sicilian/Arab designs as a gift and we thank him and tell him we hope to see him again in not too many years. We head out of town--traffic is somewhat slow--and get on the state road to Agrigento; the route takes us across the heart of the interior of Sicily down to the southern coast. We pass through beautiful farms and climb pretty steep mountains......the countryside is green and dotted with the wild flowers of May--riots of color everywhere--and the views are wonderful. It is a fairly busy road.....but we make good time. I have a good time passing slower vehicles at the first opportunity and even making a two lane road into three--an Italian specialty. We pass through the hometown of Mafia boss Lucky Luciano and of Nobel Prize winning author Leonard Scascia....two opposite poles of Sicilian celebrity. After about two hours, the overbuilt suburbs of Agrigento come into view....block after block of high rise apartment buildings. We bypass the center of Agrigento, because we heading for lunch just outside Palma di Montechiaro, the next town over. We have been invited by Sylvia and Giuseppe Bonofiglio, who run the Mandranova olive oil concern and are developing some rental properties and hotel rooms on their estate. Jonathan had made the contact earlier in the year and they hope that perhaps I can send some clients their way and make some contacts with other travel professionals for them. We drive right through the Valley of the Temples....I am constantly surprised to look up when driving and see 5th century BC Greek temples overlooking the road. Sylvia and Giuseppe meet us at the highway exit near the farm and lead us to their property. There are olive trees for as far as you can see. The Bonofiglios are about 40 years old--he had been an international banker and she is an entrepreneur in Palermo--and they are developing the property that has been in Giuseppe's family for years. They have won a number of prizes for their oil in the last couple of years and they are now completing their own olive oil pressing facility on the property, which will also have some apartment and villas for rent. It is quite an ambitious project....and they are very excited about all facets of it. This area of southern Sicily is hilly and somewhat arid...it is not far from the water and in the center of a number of tourist attractions. But there is still a lot to do to make the Agrigento area more than a one night stop on most tourist's Sicily itineraries. Before we have lunch, they show us everything...the apartments, the new olive pressing facility, the olive trees, the new swimming pool and the villa that they have finished restoring, where they stay when they are at Mandranova. They have done a wonderful job restoring the building--an old railway station--and they are putting the finishing touches on the outdoor areas now. We have a lovely lunch...meatballs in sauce, artichokes and fava beans, and samples of some of the products that they sell under the Mandranova label--sundried tomato spread, olive spread, artichoke cream, etc.--all very tasty. We say goodbye around 4 pm and head back to Agrigento....we take the long way back through the beach town of San Leone (we are trying to relocate a restaurant we had eaten at on our visit nine years before) and then start to look for the hotel.....the Domus Aurea. After a few false starts, we find it--just off a main road but a slightly tortuous route, over a bridge, past a garbage dump and under the main road. The hotel is an old manor house which has been restored and surrounded with beautiful gardens and terraces, with a wonderful view of the temples set on a ridge about a mile away. We get settled and head outside to sit in the sun, relax, have a glass of prosecco and enjoy the temples in the distance. Around 6:30, we decide to head into Agrigento to buy some flowers for Diana's birthday and to get our film developed. There is lots of traffic heading into town....on our first pass we can't find any parking and make a long circuit of the residential neighborhood to get back to the centro. This time, I find a space in the parking lot just outside the train station and we walk into town. The first florist has a poor selection so we press on to the main street--Via Aetnea--where the Saturday evening passeggiata is in full swing. We find a photo shop which will develop the pictures in an hour....so we join the locals. We stop at a second shop and buy some flowers....and then we walk the entire length of the main drag and back again. We are still a little early for the pictures so I bring the flowers down to the car, because we decide to eat dinner in Agrigento. There are three suggested restaurants in the center of Agrigento and I pick the one that seems to be most promising......but when we arrive, it is clear that I have not chosen well. To make a long story short, the restaurant is a mistake from the atmosphere to the food....it is the first and only bad experience so far on the trip. We'll have a proper, celebratory birthday dinner tommorrow. We make our way back to the hotel, past the temples which are lit up at night and are quite a remarkable sight. We sit on the terrace for a few minutes before going to bed. |
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