♫ One love, one heart. Let’s get together and feel all right♫
The city feels alive. It’s the best way to describe Palermo. As I lay in bed listening to the sounds of Bob Marley floating in through the open window of our balcony, I am overcome with a sense of contentment and joy. One of those moments that you want to try and bottle up and take with you if such things were possible.
Facing the sea with lush valleys tucked between mountains, I fell in love with Palermo’s gritty elegance the moment we stepped on its streets. Our room overlooked the Via Maqueda where the pulse of the city lives, full of people, laughter, music, delicious food, and drinks. It's like Times Square without all the bright, flashy billboards. In their place are beautiful landmarks such as Teatro Massimo (Italy’s largest opera house and the location of the final scene of the Godfather trilogy), the Quattro Canti (three levels of statues representing the four seasons, each one personified as a woman), and the Fountain of Shame. Its nude figures are considered racy in conservative Sicily, and to make it worse, the Fountain was erected in the middle of two churches. The locals claim the nuns used to attempt to dress the offending statues, and when that didn’t work, they slipped out of their convents with a chisel and hammer to attempt to remove some of the offending parts.
The people of Palermo live outdoors. At any time of the day, people were flooding piazzas and cafes, engaging in spirited conversation, and talking with their hands. But what was most fascinating was Palermo’s rich history. On our second day, we took a bike tour of the city. Our guide, Lara, filled us in on Palermo’s complicated history of what she called “dominations”. Founded by Phoenician traders, it remained a small settlement until Arab traders arrived in AD 827 and made it the capital of the island. From there, Palermo attracted a parade of successive invaders, each leaving their mark. Lara and several of the locals spoke fondly of the Norman period, defined by its attitude of tolerance, where each ethnic group was allowed to play to its strengths, ushering in a period of economic prosperity for Sicily.
Oddly enough, while walking through the Cappuccini Catacombs, a rather morbid underground crypt packed with corpses in various states of decay, I came upon my name engraved in marble stone. In fact, there was an entire list of Corradis chilling amongst the corpses of dead monks. It wasn’t exactly how I pictured meeting my relatives, but it was a sight to behold, nonetheless.
The Mafia once held sway over the island, but local resistance and the conviction of several high-profile leaders removed much of its influence at the neighborhood level. There are several monuments throughout the city recalling the events of the 80’s that led to its fall from power.
As we wound our way through Palermo on bike, dodging cars, pedestrians, and scooters, I couldn’t help but note the evidence of domination and conquest throughout the city. Palermo’s colonial heritage has left behind a patchwork of cultural beauty that shines through.
We caught a glimpse of this beauty on our last night in Palermo. Tucked outside about a mile and a half from the city center, I Sapori del Mare is a small-family-owned restaurant providing some of the most delicious food we had on our entire trip. We hit it off with the owner from the start. He reminded me of my Grandpa Jon – warm, welcoming. You could sense the pride he had in his restaurant and his genuine desire to create a good experience for anyone who walked through the door.
“My dad told us to come here”, JT told him as we sat down, fumbling through the language barrier.
“That is very nice for me”, he said as a smile broke out across his face.
The place is small and intimate, with just a few tables available covered in navy blue tablecloths and surrounded by teal chairs. The seaside décor may have been considered kitsch back in Minnesota, but it worked here. We ate our way through plates of mussels, clams, and sea bass followed by a pistachio dessert, borderline giddy about the food being presented to us. As we were wrapping up, we snapped a quick picture with the owner, and he brought back shots of his homemade orange liqueur. I dutifully picked up my glass (I don’t drink), toasted the owner, and tossed it back. His giant smile stayed with me long after we walked out the door. Throughout our trip, we stumbled across a few joints like this – intimate, family focused, filled with amazing food, off the beaten path. It was comforting to find that even in the middle of a different country, we’d managed to find a slice of something that felt like home.
***
As we walk out of the train station, I am startled by our new surroundings. While Palermo’s grittiness had a sense of elegance, Catania just feels straight up gritty. Dense, urban, and full of traffic, every attempt at crossing the street feels like a game of Frogger. It seems the only way to cross the street effectively is to walk into oncoming traffic and stare down drivers, as if daring them to run you over. As we begin the walk to find our hostel, I try to ignore my desire to hop back on the train and skip this city entirely.
While my initial impression of Catania was not great, it was one of those places that reminded me to not judge a book by its cover. Sitting on the eastern shore of Sicily, many of its buildings are made from the black lava stone of Mt. Etna, an active volcano that sits above the city. The locals have great reverence for it, and as Europe’s largest active volcano, it makes sense.
“She takes but she does not kill”, says our guide Natalie on our tour of “The Etna”, as she points to a house that was destroyed by one of the volcano’s many eruptions. I briefly wonder why anyone would want to live so close to such a force, but then remember that people also think Minnesotans are crazy for wanting to live in a place that often buries them in several feet of snow (to each their own).
Despite its rough exterior, we stuck with Catania enough to discover its lively main square, chaotic fish market, and an intriguing World War II Museum. But it was the people we met during our time here that were the highlight of our Catania experience.
Carlo, our hostel host, was kind in his response to our many questions, offering several recommendations on the best ways to experience the city. An accountant from Germany, retired at age 46, was on a pilgrimage of sorts, traveling to various countries, intent on seeing as much of the world as possible, encouraging us to do the same. He described an intense, and evidently aborted, desire to see flamingos near Syracuse – a raison d'être that required extra effort to hear out, being so far outside our own context. Nico, a guest in our hostel from Switzerland, was kind and welcoming the several times we ran into him throughout the city. Nathaniel, an American student studying abroad in Rome, who we got to know on our train ride to Taormina. An Italian couple from Florence who joined us on our tour of Mt. Etna shared the difficulties they experienced with our government in trying to get a travel VISA to the US after having visited Cuba. Then there was Felix, a rather goofy dude whose highlight of Italy seemed to be the $2 Corona beers. And finally, two women from Canada, Andrea and Liza, who we chatted with for a couple hours in the hostel lounge. Co-workers and friends, they were finally taking a vacation together after several years of talking about it. All vastly different individuals, each with their own story to tell.
As we were wrapping up the evening, we mentioned to Andrea and Liza that we were considering heading to Taormina in the morning for a day trip. Having been there the day prior, they shared their recommendations and warned us that the area had become quite popular due to its location being used in the TV series, White Lotus.
“If you go”, they told us, “Don’t take the goat path back down!”
***
“Watch your step, hon!”, JT warns me as we descend the steep, rocky path.
Despite the warning from our Canadian friends, we’re on the goat path now ourselves, parts of which have no railing whatsoever despite being built into the edge of a cliff. It’s not entirely voluntary. Several bus misadventures have limited our options.
I look back at the town of Taormina above us, briefly wondering if we should have stayed and waited an hour and half for the next bus. Taormina sits halfway up the side of Mount Tauro overlooking the Ionian Sea. The entire townscape is steep, with lots of hills and stairs. At this point, turning around and making the climb up would be more challenging than continuing to make our way down.
I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the uneasiness in my stomach. I watch as JT side steps around a tight corner.
“Please don’t die!”, I shout half-jokingly. “I need you to survive Italy”.
There is an element of truth to my statement. JT has become the unofficial tour guide of our trip. It is one of things I love about our relationship; we seem to have an intuitive sense of one another’s strengths and can assume our respective roles without much discussion. And if I’m being totally honest, my limited sense of direction disqualifies me from overseeing anything involving maps. I once convinced my sister-in-law to drive ten minutes south on our way to the North Shore simply because Google Maps said so. (And I’m reminded, by the way, that even what Google “said” is subject to interpretation.)
I briefly wonder what will happen if we don’t make it down. How long would it take for people to discover that we never made it home? Do things like this make international news? Idiot Tourists Fall to their Demise in the Cliffs of Taormina?
Fortunately, these questions remained unasked. We make it to the bottom exchanging high fives and sighs of relief while also having learned an important lesson. Of the many paths you can take in life, don’t take the goat path.
***
“It is impossible!”, the woman laughs.
Shouts and cheers echo through the small town of Minori located on the Amalfi coast. JT and I have been trying to find the source of the excitement and have stumbled upon a kind Italian woman just leaving mass at the Basilica of Saint Trofimena. She doesn’t speak much English, but has generously taken on our cause, reminding me so much of my grandma and her sisters as she waves down strangers, talking with her hands and trying in vain to find someone who can translate for us.
Finally, she flags down a young boy, speaking in rapid Italian and instructing him to bring us to the place where all the cheering and shouting is coming from. He begrudgingly reverses his own course and leads us up the hill for a few blocks and points to the right. Cars and scooters line the streets leading up to a gymnasium where a basketball game is taking place. Men in red and yellow uniforms scramble back and forth across the court. Although the crowd only numbers about 100, it feels like the entire town of Minori is here, completely invested in what appears to be a municipal basketball game, with bent rims and no tickets. A dozen or so super fans - mostly boys around 20 - are standing shoulder to shoulder, waving towels above their heads, cheering and shouting. I can feel the ground beneath me shaking as the drums echo throughout the gymnasium. We catch the final two minutes of the game and join the crowd as they erupt in cheers at the final buzzer. We swarm out into the night, and I can’t help but be struck by the close, tight knit feel of this community, how unbothered they seem by these two strangers floating among them and the total emotional commitment to an otherwise average basketball game.
Much like the woman at the church, most people seemed eager to befriend us and help. Minori is a delight of small streets and alleys meandering up the mountain with lemon tree gardens and draping bougainvillea in the background. During the day, we stumble across donkeys hauling supplies up and down the mountain or stonemasons patching the cobblestone paths. After the hustle and bustle of Catania, it feels restorative to be in a place that can be savored slowly, finding hidden gems in courtyards, as if we’re living in a different era.
***
“I think we just got touristed”, JT chuckles, using the new verb we’ve made up anytime we fall into a tourist trap. Ten euros later, our pockets were filled with wooden turtles, elephants, and bracelets that neither of us particularly wanted but somehow ended up paying for thanks to a particularly effective pitch/scam.
I loved Rome. Every time we turned a corner, there was something new to discover. Upon arrival, we elbowed our way through the huge crowds as we hit some of the popular spots – the Spanish Steps, the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon – but after spending several hours the next morning trying to navigate the Vatican (and running away from persistent ticket scalpers trying to convince us to pay 60 euro to skip the line), we decided on a different approach, pulling out a walking tour book that promised the opportunity to experience the city like a local.
As we moved away from the crowds surrounding the Colosseum, a whole different kind of Rome opened to us, one with less people anyway. Passing the outskirts of the Roman Forum, once the political, commercial, and religious center of Rome, we read about the decline of the Roman Empire and the accompanying deterioration of the Forum. I was fascinated by the Roman approach of taking materials from a former location to build on another, a stark contrast to the American way of demolishing everything and starting new. Stopping for a bite of gelato, we took in the pile of sand that was once Circo Massimo, trying to picture the hundreds of thousands of spectators who would come to watch the chariot races that took place there. After walking through the Orange Gardens, we stumbled across a pyramid, a reminder of the time when Egypt was still a part of the Roman Empire, Caesar was busy chasing Cleopatra, and obelisks and Egyptian gods were all the rage.
By that point, it had started to rain, we had walked several miles, our feet were sore, and we were getting tired. But we decided to peek into the Cimitero Acattolico (the Non-Catholic Cemetery) where over 4,000 non-Catholic foreigners who died in Rome were buried. I was mostly focused on finding John Keats’ grave, moving through with a passing glance at the other headstones. But after we’d been home for a few days, I couldn’t help but think of all those people buried so far from where they were born.
JT and I had been discussing where wanted to be buried only a couple months prior. Up until that point, I had never thought much about it. I figured I’d probably be cremated and hope that some kind soul would spread my ashes somewhere. But if I was buried, where would I want to be? What would they write on my headstone? Who would come to visit? What would they say?
I didn’t expect that a visit to Italy would cause me to reflect on my own mortality, but being in a different part of the world, surrounded by new people in a foreign place, caused me to wonder about the kind of lives we lead, what we can learn from one another, and the impact we’ll have on others while we’re here and after we are gone.
***
“La ragazza mangia una mela.”
Ding!
Swipe.
The sounds of Duo Lingo echo throughout the house. I’ve returned from our trip determined to master Italian. And by master Italian I, of course, mean actually learning some amount of Italian.
I made some effort to learn the language in the weeks leading up to our departure (in retrospect, a very minimal effort). I went in with the idealistic notion that I could be somewhat conversational during our time there- if we stuck to very basic conversations. But being thrust into an unfamiliar place where I did not speak the language felt overwhelming. Despite desperately not wanting to be seen as a “dumb American tourist”, being reduced to pointing at things with shouts of “Si!” and enthusiastic nods any time I tried to communicate something kind of made me appear like… a dumb American tourist.
I was touched by the kindness of strangers who quickly switched to English to ease some of the communication barrier. And it wasn’t just one or two people, it was dozens – dozens of people we met on our trip speaking multiple languages, transitioning between each as if it was a simple act like changing your t-shirt. My inability to speak the language felt limiting and was humbling.
I thought of my grandparents who had emigrated from Sicily to the Iron Range. Undoubtedly, their reasons for leaving were complex, each family having their unique story. What was it like to leave your home knowing you may never go back? How did they navigate the many barriers of this strange new, foreign land? Did they meet others who extended such kindness as the people we’d met on our travels?
“We have great respect for immigrants”, Frederika, our hotel host in Rome, shared with us. “But lately, we seem to have forgotten that we were once immigrants ourselves”.
So much of Europe was new and different to me. But Frederika’s comments reminded me of our similarities, our humanness. Caught up in our day-to-day lives, I think it can be easy to forget our roots, where we came from, who we once were, our shared existence. Sometimes the simple act of kindness from a stranger can serve as a kind of universal language and a reminder not to lose sight of what truly matters.
***
Over the years, I’ve developed an ambivalence (and maybe even a little cynicism) about traveling. Between dealing with airlines, hordes of tourists, awareness of environmental impacts, and being a bit of a homebody, I would often return from trips feeling like I needed a vacation from my vacation. I thought it made more sense to put effort into creating a life that I did not want to escape from. This trip reminded me how little I know about the world and the people living in it.
I didn’t initially think of our trip to Italy as a pilgrimage, but looking back, it kind of feels like one. What started out as a half-formed desire to “get back to my roots” turned into a journey of the unexpected. We did not plan our trip to the minute. In fact, our lack of agenda would likely make others rather anxious. But for me it was in those very moments of openness and uncertainty that some of the most memorable experiences of our trip happened. Each encounter provided the opportunity to connect, to find new people and places that invite one to reflect on your approach to life.
Seeing the ruins of Rome, learning about the complicated history of domination in Sicily, and walking among historic buildings and monuments, reminded me that human beings are complex and messy. But within that mess, there remains a foundation to build upon – a place where we can start, make plans, and leave room for the unexpected.
As we boarded our plane back to the US, I took one last look at the landscape of Italy, feeling like I was leaving a piece of myself there. Perhaps it will stay there, just another piece among the ruins. But I’d like to think of it as a piece that I can hopefully one day return to - a place to build upon.
Comments
Post a Comment