Caltigerone and Morgantina

(Picture from the Sicily Puppet Museum)
Beautiful day driving from Siracusa to the interior of Sicily. Bob had made an offhand remark to our Taoromina hotel manager, Paolo, that I had Morganti blood. He said “Ah, Morgantina!” and then told us about an excavation of a bronze age Greek town called “ Morgantine.” We made our way to the site (2 hrs. with a bit of confusion). I had expected brown, scrubby landscape but since it is springtime we were rewarded with lush green vistas. Our route on this back roads sojourn took us through hundreds of lemon and orange groves. The trees were so full of ripe fruit that, at one point, the sides of the two lane road were lined with big, fat oranges that had fallen from the trees. We found the huge site that is a Princeton excavation and we stumbled on a wonderful little “cucina Contadina” that was empty – but open. Named “EYEXEI” after a mosaic found on-site. Lunch was a delicious Sicilian meal of grilled lamb, rabbit, sausage and maybe chicken, two kinds pasta, great breads, green salads with fennel, a good local wine made from the Nero d’aviola grape and dessert of strawberry semifreddo, almond semifreddo and a warm, sweet ricotta ravioli. Earlier in the day we had stopped in Caltigerone which is famous for its ceramics. The town has >100 ceramic decorated steps which connect the old town to the new town. It was just by dumb luck that we pulled in the side mirrors and aimed the car down the narrow streets into the old town. The GPS was useless because in this situation an old town like this looks like a plate of spaghetti on the GPS screen. On one hairpin turn I noticed the steps and then we found parking! It was a miracle!