Modica to Siracusa 1-12-16

Today was what we hoped our visit to Sicily would really be like.  We started the day in Modica, our room at the Modica Old Town Rooms was really nice.  It was quiet, very clean, and spacious.  We had an appointment with a the man from whom we commissioned a belt yesterday evening.  A few weeks ago I bought a silver Navajo belt buckle from a brocante in Paris, very cheaply.  Deb had read that leather products were very well priced in Sicily so we thought we would try to get a belt made for me.  We passed a shop yesterday and the man said yes
he could make a belt, and the prices was really reasonable.  So we gave him the buckle and he said come back in an hour. But we suggested that we could return in the morning at 9:00 and he was very happy with that idea.  So we came back and I tried the belt so that he could figure out where to make the holes.  The belt was really long so he cut it to length and made holes while we went out for a cup of tea and an espresso.  When we got back the belt was ready, so I put it on, we paid and thanked them for the friendly service.  Then we loaded the car and headed out of Modica for Siracusa (Syracuse).
It was about an hour's drive of which half was on back roads through the countryside.  We passed many small towns and farms and marvelled at how green the countryside is in January.  But it's really tropical in the southeast, warm but not hot and when the breeze comes up it is a little cool.  
We found our hotel which sits directly across the street from the Mediterranean and almost at the southern tip of the small island at the bottom of Siracusa.  It's the old town historic center and reminds us so very much of Venice without canals.  Beautiful old buildings, both renaissance, and baroque, the streets kind of run down in appearance, but with beautiful courtyards on the inside.
We found a nice little restaurant for lunch that had an extensive seafood menu and settled in for a relaxed little lunch.  I think the strain associated with the car and having to spend another day racing across the island must have taken its toll, because we had a bit of a contretemps earlier and the lunch served as a way to ramp things down.
After lunch we walked through our quarter looking at buildings and visiting two historic areas.  The first is the duomo which was built over the site of a Greek temple to Minerva from the 5th century BC.  It was our first encounter with ancient Greek architecture, even if it had been goobered over by the Catholic church, the columns are beautiful.  After that visit we walked up to the northern tip of the island and looked at the ruins of another Greek temple, this one to Apollo.  There was a foundation, one standing wall and a line of columns still standing.
It was getting towards sunset by then so we walked back to the hotel along the eastern seawall surrounding the island and got there around dark.

Plan B in Sicily 1-11-16

Spent a restless night gnawing on the auto problem, really uselessly because nothing could be done, but hey...  It is difficult to express how warmly and graciously the Montalbanos (our hosts) treated us and how much help they really gave us.  All I can say is that I will never stay any place else if I ever return to Sciacca.  They own the Conte Luna B&B, it is spotless, extremely well located, quiet and they make you feel like part of the family.  His daughter Christina, speaks English and went out of her way to help us communicate with her father, Mr. Montalbano.
When I got up I went down to the B&B reception area and talked with our host, actually we kind of piece together a bit of French, a bit of Italian, and a bit of English, and we decided to call the rental company early to get things sorted out.  He called and talked with them for several minutes, saying what I'll never know, and then passed the phone to me.  I talked with the agent at the airport in Palermo and it was agreed that I would come up and they would do a car exchange.  So rather than let the entire day get away by riding the bus up to the airport, we opted for a taxi which would take us from Sciacca to the airport in Palermo for 100 euros.   Curiously enough that about what it cost us to go to the airport in Denver by taxi so we jumped at it.
They have a friend, Salvatore, who is a private limousine company and so he took us to the airport.  We arrived around noon and got the paperwork done to do the exchange, so we were on the road shortly before 1:00pm.
To get our schedule back in synch we had to drive all the way across Sicily from Palermo in the northwest to Modica in the southeast via Syracusa, literally diagonally across the island.  It took us about four and half hours and we arrived in Modica around 5:00. Our trip took us just south of Mount Etna so we had super views of the volcano. it had been our our itinerary but we'll have to skip it this time so that we can see the Greek temples at Agrigento.
The sun was still up a little when we arrived so we got ourselves situated and took a walk in the twilight.  It will possibly be an expensive little episode with the car, but I did purchase insurance through the booking agent and hopefully it will reimburse us for the expenses.

First day in Sicily

We had a totally unremarkable trip down to Sicily today, the Metro and busses were right on time, so we had time to kill in the airport. The flight left right on time and we arrived a little early in Palermo. We got our car and and headed out to Sciacca in the bright sunshine, perfect.
And then we got to the outskirts of Sciacca and the car decided that enough was enough.  So at the moment we're stranded in Sciacca, the clutch seems to be burned completely out. I called roadside assistance thanks to an incredibly nice man that I accosted going into his apartment while I was trying to follow impossible instructions from a tomtom driving map, on foot.
Then he called our B&B who was so kind as to send a car over for us, and they even waited until the wrecker arrived. Tomorrow I'll have to try to sort it out with the car rental company, otherwise we may be spending a few more days in Sciacca. But not all is lost because it's a lovely town.   We walked around town after getting situated in our B&B and had a lovely dinner in a small osteria just next to the B&B

Up to Our Old Saturday Tricks 1-9-16

If it's Saturday it must be a day for brocante markets, and sure enough there was one down in the 14th arr. that caught our attention.  Just down the street from Gare Montparnasse it looked like a good candidate.  The day was very cool but sunny and bright so we grabbed the Metro and made our way over there.  Given that it's January and that the tourists are at a low ebb we were happy to find about 30 vendors lined along one side of the street.  Once we got to Montparnasse we had about a 15 minute walk down Boulevard du Maine to where the market started.  So we made our way down the line and looked at many things, it's interesting that we are getting to recognize the various vendors and what they have to offer.  I think I've mentioned before that it's a relatively small community that follows this particular business, and after a time one starts to see familiar faces.

At the southern end of the market there is a mid-nineteenth century church that was built in a neo-byzantine manner so we went in to look, it is not opulent but it is attractive nonetheless.  The wooden ceiling was quite beautiful and the arches in some of the chapels had either mosaic or gold leafed backgrounds, it looked like mosaic.





After visiting the market we walked a few blocks north and into the Montparnasse cemetery, it has a number of well known French writers and artists who are interred here, like Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Ossip Zadkine, and Man Ray.  We spent a little time walking through and looking but it was getting cold. Since we are headed to Sicily tomorrow we headed back to the apartment early to finish packing and have an early night.

The January Soldes and the Louvre 1-8-16

Every year the big department stores have sales in January (called Soldes) to clear leftover Christmas stock. According to Deb Parisians try stuff on early and then make lists of what they want to buy.  When the sales start they jet off down to the stores and try to fill in their lists at 30-50% discounts.  We went by BHV today to see if Deb's favorite pans are on sale, but of course only the low end pans were marked down.  Too bad for them, they would have had a chance to lose some money on the good stuff.  I lost a pair of gloves on a day out not long ago and looked at what they had on offer, all 30% off, but the cheap gloves originally started at 50 euros and the expensive ones were over 200, I'll just get by with the ones I already have for now.
We will be leaving for Sicily on Sunday (2 days) for a week of what we hope will be sunshine and warm weather.  We're really looking forward to it as we've never been south of Rome before.  They have some really fine Greek, Roman, and Medieval structures and we plan to see as many as we can in a week.  I haven't decided whether I will post during the next week or not, I may post via my Ipad and then fill in with pictures when we return.
To continue, after our little sojourn in BHV we went over to the Louvre to see several rooms that we've walked through before trying to get to other places, so today we spent our time there. Primarily they were treasures from churches and abbeys of the middle ages, so lots of sculptures, reliquaries, and carvings of religious subjects.  Not exactly my cup of tea, but there were some very beautiful objects to behold. There was the crown that Napoleon used to crown himself emperor in 1803, when the pope sat by uselessly, it had taken and reused all the ancient cameos from the crown of St. Louis.
Also there was a beautiful bronze of Charlemagne, very small but impressive nonetheless.
I got some closeup pictures of some early enameling on the corners of a large religious panel that I really liked as well.

Deyrolle and Terra 1-7-16

It was really raining this morning and it had been a howling wind all night, very much like a storm. But by noon the sun was out for our venture this afternoon, Deb has wanted to see the garden store Deyrolle for many years now and today was the day.
Deyrolle is interesting because before it was a garden store it was one of the top taxidermy stores in Paris, evidently Parisians are crazy for stuffed animal according to Deb.  So the garden store is in the small space on the street level and on the next floor up are 4 fairly large rooms full of mounted animals and other related objects for sale as well as nature books, very strange.  As might be expected the animals are not cheap, and some look a bit shop worn.  All in all it was a very interesting place to visit.

Next we walked west on Boulevard Saint-Germain for a few blocks and over to the Terra Foundation of American Art.  It is part of the Terra Foundation in Chicago and exists to promote research and study in American Art.  They have a free library and it's possible search their computers for any books they may have related to American art and American artists in Paris.  So of course we wanted to see if we could find anything on John Edward Thompson, the subject of Deb's biography. Unfortunately no luck this time but they were helpful in pointing us to other libraries that may contain books that would help.   After finishing there we walked back to our bus stop next to the Louvre for the ride back to the apartment.

More Real Collectors of the Last Century 1-6-16

Today we went over to the Musee Marmottan Monet to see a temporary exhibit that will be closing very soon.  It was a collection from a Swiss collector whose home was called the Villa Flora. He was an ophthalmologist named Arthur Hanloser who along with his wife Hedy started collecting early in the 20th century between 1906 and 1936 starting with the post-impressionists, Felix Vallotton and Ferdinand Hodler.
They made friends with the artists and hosted them at the houses in Zurich and Cannes. As a result ended up making friends with the likes of Bonnard, Matisse, Manet, Vuillard, and Redon among others and ended up collecting their works as well.  And along the way they also managed to collect a few Cezanne's and a couple Van Gogh's to boot.  But they considered the crown jewel of their collection to be a large nude by Felix Vallotton, so fine company indeed. What makes them so interesting is that they did their collecting pretty much based on what really grabbed them personally rather than relying on a third party to lead them.  But obviously the collection is first rate because they brought it to the museum for the first French exhibition ever. Interestingly we heard a British couple talking about having come over from London for the day just to see it.
A funny thing, Ferdinand Hodler was the most celebrated painter in Switzerland in the 19th century and they didn't even mention him in the promotional release from the museum. A little French chauvinism?  I wonder.  I did manage a couple of photos before being disciplined that they didn't allow photos in the exhibit. There were close to 80 pieces on display and it was sensational to see.