SICILY: He marched me up to the top of the hill

Turns out that on Easter Monday, everything is shut. Following the massive Sunday of Easter Masses and parades of saints' statues everyone is officially knackered. 

So it was a good day to be transferring between Enna, in the centre and Castelbuono in the Madonie National Park in the north. Or was it?

Before we left Enna, we had planned to explore the Lombardy Castle - a must see. But although, like a besieging army, we circled it, all gates were shut. The castle was having a day off.

 Instead, we climbed the nearby great rock where once Demeter and Kore (Persephone) had been worshipped. And we could see right across to Etna, smoking quietly from its snow-capped summit. Then, back down and into the car.

Next we parked at the historic hilltop town of Gangi. We climbed the steep slope but pretty much everything was shut, except the main church and (thankfully) the public toilets. Then, back down the picturesque narrow streets and back in the car. 

Finally on a whim we stopped beneath a hilltop castle built long ago by the powerful Ventimiglia family. The steep path up had once been broad and well paved, but now a thick growth of weeds had sprung up between the slabs. 'Looks like this is going to be shut, just like everything else today.'

But we kept climbing just for the heck of it. We passed a firmly shut ticket office, but still kept going. 

Finally, we were amazed to find the gate of the castle open. The ruins were not substantial, but they were certainly interesting to scramble about in.

At last persistence had been rewarded. Which is good as I don't think my knees could have managed even one more hill!

 

SICILY: Rape fountain

 

The first place we stayed in was Ortygia. Here a formidably defensible island was lucky enough to have a reliable spring of pure fresh water which emerged right next to the sea. In the spring’s origin myth, Arethusa was one of the goddess Diana’s girl-gang of nymphs. In Arcadia, Arethusa went to bathe in the river, but Alpheus, the god of that river fell in love with her and pursued her. To help her escape, Diana turned her into a rushing stream and sent her underground, finally emerging by the edge of the sea at Ortygia. However, Alpheus pursued her by running beneath the sea until he caught up with her at Ortygia and was still able to ‘mingle his waters with hers’.

Yuk.

A fountain in the central Piazza Archimede celebrates the whole sorry affair.

Next we went on to Enna, a hill town said to be the setting for the myth of Hades and Persephone. In the town square, sure enough, there is a fountain depicting Hades, King of the Underworld, seizing the beautiful young Persephone in order to kidnap her.

Also yuk.

After that we stayed in Castelbuono. We went for a drink in the old town square, and Nigel saw me staring at the simple unadorned water feature in the centre.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘This town doesn’t have a rape fountain,’ I said, ‘I like it already!’

SICILY: An Easter Sunday tradition

Sicily was for a long time under Spanish rule, and a Spanish tradition dating from the Inquisition has lived on at Enna. Each local church here sends out a group of its men, wearing the coloured robes of their church plus a pointed white hood. The idea is that these men are penitents and the hood is to nullify their identity and point their prayers to heaven. Their penitence takes the form of marching through the streets carrying a heavy float bearing the statue of their church’s saint.

These processions happened during Holy Week, so when we arrived at Enna on Easter Saturday, the main spectacle was past.  However, in Enna, there is a special celebration on the evening of Easter Sunday. We joined the crowd of spectators on the steps of the Duomo (cathedral).

We stood next to a woman who lived now in Trieste, but each year returned to her old home and brought her children to watch the processions. She spoke excellent English, and there was pride and affection in her voice as she explained the tradition to us.

A statue of Jesus is marched down the hill by penitents, now wearing their hoods rolled back. Another association of penitents carries Mary up the hill. At the end, they break into a run as if Mary and Jesus are thrilled to see one another again.

Once united, they are marched together down the hill. To ensure it is not over too quickly, they march four steps forward, three steps back, all the way to the west end of the Duomo (cathedral) and the ceremony ends for another year with some of the crowd going for Mass in the Duomo. 

Afterwards, we and the woman who had acted as our informal guide went our separate ways. However, whereas we are unlikely ever to see this again, I am certain she will return to her childhood home again next Easter to witness the parade. 

That was a little odd

 

Enna is a high hilltop town with extraordinary views, like the background of a Renaissance painting.

Just opposite our hotel was the delightful-looking church of Santa Chiara, shining gold in the evening light. 

‘Chiara - that’s my name in Italian!’

‘Let’s go in.’

The custodian of the church immediately took us under her wing.

The walls had an unusual pattern of grey marble squares, each bearing either a name, or the word ‘ignoto’. But it was the floor which immediately caught my eye. Politely I decided not to mention it.

The custodian (who proudly told us she had been in post for 36 years) explained that the church had been used in the aftermath of WWII as a war cemetery. As the winter snows melted, bodies from the German, Italian and British armies had been revealed and were now housed in these walls.

‘If they were Italian, we put their name on the tomb, if not, ‘ignoto’ – ‘unknown’.’

Each of those grey marble squares was the end of a grave.

In the lunulae above the tombs were glass mosaics of scenes from the war, including, as she pointed out, one of Mussolini looking much more handsome than in life. My eyes flicked to the floor again.

After the custodian had shown us a few more details, we put something in the offerings box and left.

Once we were down the steps, I said, ‘Did you see the floor?’

‘I certainly did. Swastikas – all over!’

We returned to our room and stared pensively out of the window at the little church. But although the view had not changed, it no longer seemed so delightful.