When we went to San Stefano di Camastra and Pollina

Another tour Saturday took us to the northern town of San Stefano... We had been there once before, about a week after we got to Sicily, and were too overwhelmed to appreciate its beauty, too new to just wander the town, and too ignorant of the Sicilian pottery to make any intelligent decisions on things to buy.

Usually on these tours we are dropped off in a town for and hour of "shopping" during the Sicilian reposo. That's the time when all shops close and the shopworkers have a long lunch and time for relaxing before opening back up for the evening trade. So, needless to say, we don't get much shopping done. This time, though, we were given three hours during the actual work day then visited the other sights (castle tower and amphitheater) more appropriately when the shops were closed.

We did buy a few things to use when we have dinner guests which seems to be at least once a week.

San Stefano is noted for it's ceramics much like Caltegirone about which we've written before. Since we hadn't planned to buy much, and were given so much time, we had time to wander. The town sits on the shores of the Tyrannian Sea (a northern extension of the Mediterranean) and has beautiful walled walkways from which to view the water. The walkway you see in this picture is made of hand carved stone (not formed concrete) with ceramic tiles covering the top and sides. It's beautiful-----(and the guy in the photo is cute, too).

There were so many great photo places that I'll just have to refer you to our "flicker" site so you can see how neat the area is.

As usually happens when we begin to wander outside of the main street and through the less traveled areas of a town, we found a trattoria (family-owned restaurant) where we were the only non-Sicilian and the food was amazing. The menu was written on a board as we walked in and we ordered from it. What did we order? We don't know but it was great. Bob's was a ravioli filled with ground prosciutto, covered with a sauce (sugo) of freshly cooked artichoke, tomatoes and ham. Mine was linguini with cooked fresh tomatoes and the meat of some kind of shellfish. I have never liked a mixture of fish and pasta or tomatoes and fish but this was very good.

Later we went to the town of Pollina up at the top of a mountain (as are many, many of the towns). It was so high that from the bottom of the mountain we could see the town consumed by clouds. When we got to the town, sure enough, we could look down on the clouds. The bus had to stop at the edge of town because there was no way for the driver to turn the bus around if he went up into the streets of the village.

We walked up the street (up being the operative word here) and stepped into a couple of churches that were open on our way. I really can't begin to describe what we saw. The outside of the churches looked like old, dead, decaying rock buildings but once we stepped inside the beauty was astounding. Solid marble statues with inlaid marble designs around them, murals and paintings--all having been there for hundreds of years. One church had beautiful sculptures and designs but only 8 chairs for parishiners. What a statement.

As we passed a little store our tour guide (who by this time only was guiding Bob, me and one other lady, all others had gone ahead) said she had something special to show us. She opened a door to a little shop about the size of our bathroom. In the small interior sat a beautiful old lady with her feet on an open-fire stove for warmth, cracking pistachios with a small hammer and putting them in a container probably to sell later.

The store was filled with everything you could possibly need from pins and needles to milk. But with only one or two of each item, the store was packed full. With our guide as an interpreter, this lady told us she is 86 years old and works every day in the store to keep busy. She said her daughter wants her to move to Palermo and live with the family but she is sure she would die there....................................This is the Sicily we came to see.