Western Sicily: where boundaries blur
India Today Travel Plus, October 2004
Don’t go to Sicily expecting the civilised charms of Tuscany or the aesthetic refinement of the great Renaissance capitals. This is a different world, haunted by a past of great antiquity, riddled with tragedy. Here the boundaries between east and west, Europe and Africa, Christian and Muslim are blurred. The landscape is sometimes blighted, sometimes eerily empty, always compelling. The roads may not be engineered to perfection (in contrast to the Italian mainland), but they have the advantage of being little used, allowing the motoring tourist to look, to contemplate, to explore, to wonder, at leisure and often in silence.
However, even those traffic-hardened drivers who’ve mastered the streets of Mumbai or Delhi would be ill-advised to use a car in chaotic Palermo, which is best negotiated on foot. Here the sumptuous but sometimes morbid magnificence of Sicilian Baroque can be savoured in churches and squares, along with ice cream that cannot be bettered anywhere (flavours include watermelon, cinnamon and prickly pear). The city was heavily bombed by the Allies in World War II and much of its centre is a warren of teetering ruins, wan shells of palaces and tenements, still un-repaired after six decades, emblems of the grandeur and squalor that give Sicily its unique fascination, and reminders of the civic corruption that has long oppressed its citizenry.
Palermo is a rich attraction in its own right but also the ideal starting point for a journey through western Sicily, where Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Spanish (and Fascism and the Mafia) have all left powerful traces, in the landscape, architecture, language, customs and food. Drive through the sadly spoiled, over-built Conca do’Oro – the valley spreading inland from seaside Palermo – up to the town of Monreale on the hillside overlooking the bay. The exterior of the Norman Cathedral, constructed in the second half of the twelfth century, reveals Arab influences in the patterns created by the interlaced arches. Inside, the shadowy nave is covered with richly-coloured, glittering late Byzantine mosaics as fine as anything in Venice or Istanbul. The adjacent cloister features more than 200 twin columns with decorated capitals – a tranquil, open air museum of endlessly varied sculptural detail, full of arcane symbols and earthy humour.
From this pinnacle of medieval cultural sophistication, it’s only a few miles drive inland, along narrow, twisting, cliff-hugging roads, amid a barren rock-scape, into the forlorn bandit country around Montelepre, from which Salvatore Giuliani, the Robin Hood of post war Sicily, set out on his raids against wealthy landlords. Giuliani was a charismatic figure, a champion of the poor (and briefly of Sicilian separatism), cynically used and ultimately betrayed by powerful political forces.
Heading westward, the roads pass through gently rolling vineyards, flanked by fleeting glimpses of sandy coastline and blue sea, on the way to Segesta – a 5th century BC Doric Temple whose picture postcard perfection has placed it on the cover of countless guidebooks and brochures. Sicily was the opulent heart of “Magna Graecia”, the greater Greece that sprawled across the Mediterranean from the 7th century BC, and Segesta’s solidity and symmetry – its golden stone glowing amid the green surroundings – evokes something of the splendour of that diasporic civilisation.
Beyond the pleasantly provincial resort town of Castellamare del Golfo lies the rural hamlet of Scopello, gateway to the Zingaro Nature Reserve and one of the few parts of Sicily where building restrictions appear to have been enforced. At Scopello there are the atmospheric remains of a medieval ‘tonnara’ – a tuna fishery – and an 18th century ‘baglio’ (manor house), where one can now enjoy a glass of wine while gazing out over the night-smothered sea. From Scopello it’s a short drive to the nature reserve, where you abandon the car for coastal pathways giving access to a series of secluded coves and gravel beaches.
Skip the tourist clutter at San Vito La Capa and head straight for the busy, buoyant town of Trapani. Its modern outskirts are entirely unprepossessing but they hide a delightful old city confined to a narrow peninsula jutting out into the sea, protecting a thriving port. In recent years, the streets here have been pedestrianised and many of the palaces and churches (which betray ornate Spanish influences) tastefully restored. If you’re here over Easter, you’ll catch the remarkable Processione dei Misteri (Procession of the Mysteries), during which life-size 17th and 18th century statues representing Christ’s last days are hauled through the streets. At other times, the statues are on view in a local museum and are not to be missed: they’re weirdly naturalistic and spookily gruesome.
Trapani is also the ideal place to savour western Sicily’s unique, Arab-inflected cuisine. Appetisers include arancine (rice balls flavoured with saffron), sarde a beccafico (sardines stuffed with brad crumbs, pine nuts, dried fruit and anchovies), involtini di pesce spada (thin slices of sword fish rolled, stuffed and fried), caponata (a cold stew of aubergines, peppers and tomatoes – all brought to Sicily from the New World by the Spanish), whole boiled baby octopus and intensely briny sea urchins. Then move on either to a seafood cuscus, or spaghetti alle sarde – spaghetti served with a sauce of sardines, fennel, pine nuts and raisins, spinkled with toasted bread crumbs instead of Parmesan cheese. Finish up with a fresh fruit flavoured sorbetto (sorbet, derived from the Arabic sharbat) and ricotta-stuffed cannoli.
When you’ve recovered from that, drive south along the coastal flats and their vast, bird-stippled saltpans, a modern continuation of one of the world’s most ancient industries. You soon arrive at a jetty where a boat takes you to the ruins of Mozia, a Phoenician settlement of the 8th-5th centuries BC. The remains are sparse, covered in brush and cacti, but suggestive: there are vestiges of a boat dock and burial ground.
Twenty minutes to the south is the town of Marsala, home of the world famous fortified wine. The name is Arabic – ‘Marsah Ali’ (the port of Ali, son in law of the Prophet) but the drink for which it’s known was mainly developed (and exploited) by English merchants. There are several warehouses where you can taste and buy and learn the secrets of a sweet, scented liquor that can be much subtler than is often assumed.
Another twenty minutes drive down the coast brings you to Mazara del Vallo, for two centuries one of the great capitals of Arab Sicily, and now once again the island’s main entry point for migrant labourers from North Africa, which is only 150 km from here – closer than the Italian mainland. The small white cubic houses common in these parts make one think of Tangier or Tunis.
The next major stop along the coastal route is the ancient city of Selinunte, with its sprawling Greek ruins, but before you reach there make an eye-opening detour inland to the Cave di Cusa. Here massive stone pillars and cross-braces were quarried, cut and chiselled before being loaded onto carts and dragged to Selinunte. Giant column drums and stumps are scattered across a silent, bucolic setting, surrounded by olive groves and hay fields. It’s an ideal spot for a picnic, where one can munch on local cheese, bread and fruit and imagine the slaves sweltering and suffering as they hewed the classical forms out of solid rock.
Selinunte itself is one of the most striking and rewarding Greek ruins to be found anywhere. Huge, 6th-5th century BC temples in various states of decay are spread over an open, gently rolling seaside plain. It’s far more attractive, peaceful and evocative than the over-manicured, tourist thronged monuments at nearby Agrigento. One can wander and pick one’s own way amid a surreal jumble of giant blocks of dressed stone, chunks of fluted columns and dislodged Doric capitals, with wild fennel sprouting up from the crevices and cracks.
Inland from Selinunte is another ruin, a modern and more distressing one. The town of Menfi was devastated by an earthquake in 1968 and has yet to be repaired, thanks to a continuous siphoning off of reconstruction funds by organised crime. The derelict buildings, many of them roofless, are covered with angry graffiti: “La Mafia ha fatto quest’ inferno” – “the Mafia made this hell.”
Yes, this is the land of Dons and Godfathers. But visitors to Sicily should leave their memories of Coppola’s Hollywood trilogy at home; that’s a movie more about America than Sicily. Instead, read Peter Robb’s dark but engrossing Midnight in Sicily, Lampedusa’s The Leopard, and the austere fictions of Leonardo Sciascia,
Sciacca, a working fishing port on the southern coast, makes a satisfying final destination. The name derives from the Arabic “xacca” (from the water) and you will almost surely be the only tourists in town, though it does boast a thermal spa once popular with the Romans. Behind 16th century walls and gates, narrow streets lined with handsome stone buildings run across a series of ridges rising above the blue-green sea, and open on to irregularly shaped piazzas filled with lively locals and relaxed cafes. Take the steps down to the harbour, where Sciacca’s fleet of brightly painted fishing trawlers are moored. Choose almost any of the port-side restaurants at random and feast on a meal of fresh, unadorned grilled seafood. From here, as you look out at the Mediterranean (preferably with a glass of Marsala in hand), you understand that, in western Sicily, at least, it’s not a sea that separates worlds but one that brings and blends them together.
