Story and Photos by Stephanie Levin.
Featured image: Angelic loving cherubs watch over the heart of Caltagirone on Mother’s Day.
No one is showered more with love and affection in Italy than la mama. This is amplified on Mother’s Day when spring bouquets, adoring kisses, and abundant embraces are offered to la mama and la nonna, the grandmother. Mother’s Day falls on a Sunday in Sicily, and while larger Sicilian cities don’t shutter completely, smaller Sicilian towns regard Sunday as the traditional family day, particularly on a holiday.
As a solo traveler on an unconventionally chilly Mother’s Day, my intention was to drive from Agrigento through the heart of Sicily, a circuitous stretch which would lead into the traditional villages of Enna and Nicosia, towns often bypassed for the Sicilian coastal sites and cities. To my chagrin, I learned my intended route was closed. The two alternatives were the lengthy coastal route or to double back along the main highway, which connected with a minor road leading to Caltagirone. I recognized Caltagirone as one of the eight Late Baroque towns of the Val di Noto, all renowned as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Ravaged by the earthquake of 1693, which destroyed all the towns across south-eastern Sicily, the exceptional architectural reconstruction of these towns and villages reflects the late Baroque architecture of the 17th century. While each town is acknowledged for a different specialty, Caltagirone is the notable ceramic region, recognized specifically for maiolica, a tin-glazed pottery decorated with color on a white opaque background, as well as the reddish-brown hued terra-cotta ceramics.
Caltagirone would be my last stop before returning the car in Catania. I debated if I wanted to spend the entire day driving there or arrive and sightsee. Confounding my decision-making, Google Maps is imprecise in Sicily, and so is the estimated time to journey between points. Finally, I retraced the main highway to connect with the minor road. That decision allowed me to treat myself to a drive that wound through the pristine countryside. The drive was slow, yet it felt expansive as there were no barbed wire fences or trespassing signs posted. Instead, the uninhabited land invited a skip through the fields. My car was the only one on the country road, accompanied by a sun-streaked cloudy sky.
Like all Baroque towns in Sicily, the center of Caltagirone reigns high above the surrounding region. Arriving, I spun my little Fiat into a parking area and followed a family: two men dressed in dark suits, la mama and la nonna nicely coiffed, and two children; all were poised and polished. Clearly, they were celebrating Mother’s Day, and I felt a pang of loneliness. The dreary weather, deserted streets, closed shops, and restaurants weighed on my mood barometer. The ceramic capital slumbered with not a tourist office or hotel in sight. Eventually arriving at the Piazza Municipio, the heart of the town where several main streets converged, the scene appeared almost deserted. A lone bar stood open while a few stray tourists milled about. Lunchtime had long passed. It was 3:00 pm and Italians are punctual with their eating habits. I couldn’t fathom whether the town was ghostly quiet because of Mother’s Day, or if this was a typical Sunday. Surely, the Sicilian ceramic capital wouldn’t shut down on a Sunday in May.
Ceramic enthusiasts and tourists flock to Caltagirone for the Santa Maria del Monte Stairway, one of the most impressive staircases in the world. The 142 steps are designed and decorated with Majolica tiles; each stair scene is unique. The flight of steps was built in 1606 and once linked the religious power, the Cathedral, with that of the civic power, the Palazzo Sentatorio (senators’ chambers).
I began the heart-thumping ascent. The stairway is an outdoor museum of exquisite ceramic designs. It was a steep, slow climb, but worth the effort. The view from the top showed me where the former Cathedral of Caltagirone, built in the 1500s and rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake, once stood. Today, it is the site of Sant’ Agostino Convent and San Nicola, which were constructed in the 18th century. Several thimble-size alleys fanned out from the stairway and led to ceramic workshops. As I descended the stairway, I noticed a few shops were starting to open, giving me hope the little town would spring to life.
Reaching the bottom stair, I began to obsess about where I would sleep that night when I noticed a little tourist train chugging to a stop in the square, the same type of train I had taken to the top of Modica with a guide. Surely, the conductor, who shuttled tourists, would be knowledgeable about hotels. I ambled over and introduced myself in my measly Italian, asking him if he could recommend a hotel for the night. He answered in English, pounding on his massive chest by way of introducing himself. “I have an apartment I rent out,” the conductor noted, beaming like a Cheshire Cat.
Tethered to the spot and dumbfounded at the conductor’s response, scenarios bolted about my brain. Trust this guy or not? Who pounds on their chest as a way of introduction? Does he see a quick euro because I am alone? Do I really look that desperate? What if he locks me in his apartment and chases me around? The Shakespearean moment made my heart tick like a stopwatch– to trust or not to trust– that was the question. My recent experience with trust included a scenario with a younger man in Palermo. He had chided me for not having confidence in him after I had sweetly declined his invitation to cook a fabulous pasta vongole dinner for two in his apartment, just 24 hours after we had met. His words still stung. Chef Vongole terminated our brief encounter with a warning: I would miss things in life because I was afraid to trust the unknown.
“Buon, where is the apartment?” I quizzed, hoping, for obvious reasons, that it wasn’t outside the town center. “And the price?” “It’s at the top of the town center, and it’s 70 euros a night,” he noted without an air of malice. A split decision when traveling alone doesn’t fit into a category of rationality, rather it’s a duel between heart and gut. Sometimes the decision wanders down a wrong turn, and other times it makes a right turn. My hungry gut and the idea of sleeping in the Fiat wavered on the side of trust.
All settled, the conductor informed me his shift was finished for now, and I should follow him. He wished me a happy Mother’s Day, noting he was on his way home between his train shifts to spend time with his wife and daughter for Mother’s Day. With a sense of relief, I felt sure he would not be chasing me around the apartment. Driving behind him, I followed the conductor as he left the train park. While I had a momentary twitchy feeling as he drove his car outside the town center, I soon realized we had reached our destination at the top of the town. The conductor pointed out the short walk into the center where we had just come from. His large furnished apartment boasted a kitchen, TV, dining area, a bedroom and a good-sized bathroom. With utmost Sicilian generosity, the conductor opened the cupboards filled with coffee, tea, and cookies and invited me to help myself to whatever I needed. When I decided to leave in the morning, I was to lock the door and leave the key inside. I paid the 70 euros and we shook hands; he left. I flipped on the big TV to hear Italian, hoping some of it would rub off on my pitiful accent, made a cup of tea, gobbled a handful of cookies, then strutted down into the village center.
By late afternoon, Caltagirone appeared to be stretching to re-awaken, but restaurants were still closed. I passed the closed Museo Regionale della Ceramica, housing 2500 artifacts from prehistoric times to the 20th century. I felt a twinge of regret that I would miss both a tour and the artifacts in this museum.
As I walked through the village, my view filled with colorfully patterned ceramic pots, each bursting with flowers that decorated crevices in walls and staircases. The magic of the vibrant ceramic designs fostered imagination. I could visualize piles of pasta or honeyed pastries passed around a table on one of the brightly colored plates displayed in shop windows. Interesting Moor heads of every design were sold everywhere. Of course, like so much in Sicily, history and legend go hand in hand, and the Moor heads were no exception.
During the Arab domination of the island in the 1100s, legend says a beautiful girl who lived in Palermo loved to take care of her plants on the balcony. One morning a young Moor saw her, and immediately declared his ardent love to her, which the girl returned. However, the young girl discovered that her lover would soon depart to return to his wife in the East. In a jealous rage, and to assure the Moor never left her, she cut off his head as he slept, and then planted basil in it. Like all legends, the story had a moral twist: ‘be true, or else’.
I entered a small ceramic shop and conversed with the owner who spoke French and English. His exquisite designs were unique, and the man said his wife was the master designer; he simply sold the ceramics. My stomach rumbled loudly, and we both laughed. I asked if he might suggest a restaurant. Along with the suggestion, he told me restaurants open promptly at 7:00 pm for dinner. I thanked him and sidled over to check out the restaurant. With nowhere to go, I propped myself on the wall in front of the restaurant to await the dinner hour. Suddenly, a continuous rumble and a roar emanated from the building across from where I was perched. Curious, I entered the building and scuttled up the staircase toward the cacophony of shouts, cheers, and stomping. In the upper floor of a gymnasium stood a circle of cheering parents, brothers, sisters, boyfriends, all madly rooting for the girls on the floor below who were battling out a highly competitive volleyball match. One team sported blue shorts and matching shirts, their names in bold letters across the back; ditto for the red shorts team. A wave of roars erupted each time a team scored. It felt like I had chanced upon the volleyball World Cup.
As I watched mothers, fathers, and friends cheer and stomp with each point, and groan with each missed point, I was swept up in Sicilian family life. Jubilant teenagers and parents smiled at me as if I were part of the family, so each time either a red or blue scored, I hooted and stomped with the crowd. On Mother’s Day, I was in a Sicilian gymnasium with complete strangers, jumping up and down with all the other mamas and a few nonnas as well. The doom and gloom of the early part of the day faded, and I soon felt privileged to be invited into a glimpse of Sicilian family life, one that had nothing to do with being a tourist passing through.
Once seated in the restaurant, a glass of wine in hand, I reflected on traveling alone; how my gut reaction to trust an unknown situation so often cracked open a window to people and environments I might never have encountered if I hadn’t said yes to the challenge, if curiosity hadn’t prevailed. Fatefully, I had taken the right turn in Caltagirone. Mother’s Day ended with an enormous pizza dinner, enough to leave half of the pizza in the apartment for the conductor and his family.
IF YOU GO: Caltagirone overview on Wikipedia; Staircase of Santa Maria del Monte; Tiled Stairway and Ceramics of Caltagirone; Museo Regionale della Ceramica. Caltagirone is about 43 miles (70 km) southwest of Catania.
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