Syracuse to Noto

Monday 22nd February
Syracuse to Noto

Whilst leaving Syracuse we passed a prime example of the local sense of humour; a large brightly painted building with a notice above the door advertising the Van Gogh School of Hairdressing! Alec has been putting off going to the barber for a couple of weeks and this didn’t make him any keener! We managed to take a quiet coastal road for the first 15 miles past yet more orange and lemon groves until we reached Avola where everything became rather busier.

We had planned to picnic beside the sea en route to Noto but following the map was a joke. Any motorway usually makes a useful point of reference as a map reading tool. However following a dispute with the local well know organization the motorway is not where the mappers have put it and all the minor roads in the vicinity have been re-routed or closed off. In the end, we found a quiet lane down yet another dead end where we ate our sandwiches. By this time it was about 4pm and we had been on our bikes for 5 hours and were starving. We then had to follow the main road all the way into Noto which is up a steep hill like everywhere else is in this part of the world.

Lions drinking in the square at Avola.

Noto is one of the many Baroque cities built after the earthquake of 1693 and has some wonderful buildings. We dumped our kit, and decided to go straight on up to the old part of town whilst it was still light. It is a small town so it didn’t take long to explore the main parts.

The town hall from the steps of the Church

Baroque municipal buildings

The city gates

Our host had suggested a couple of restaurants, and we found the one he said served typical Sicilian ‘peasant’ food. It was fun and we had an enormous supper so think it was more akin to a peasant’s feast. There was no menu, just the owner’s suggestions which consisted of all the vegetables in season, grilled or fried in various herbs and spices, omelettes, pizza bits, mixed grill of sausages, chops and steak potato gnocchi and more than we can remember. A carafe of wine was already on all the tables so they must have been expecting more but as usual we were the only 2 until a family came in. Our kind chef then insisted we had a limoncello to wash it all down with. We were glad we had taken enough exercise to do justice to the quantity provided. We slept very well.

Just a fraction of what we had to eat for dinner!

Prior to supper we had found ourselves in amongst the ‘evening promenade’ this was quite entertaining but they all move frustratingly slowly so we retired to a bar in order to spectate rather than participate. I had my second Campari since arriving in Italy and had forgotten just how marvelous it is when taken on a warm evening watching the sunset!!