The Legend of Wine
On the road, dark clouds drove over the green hills and black rocks, and outside the car window were clouds torn down by the wind. Empty land makes the human heart chest full of romantic heroism, the glass abruptly slipped down the water droplets as looking at a road map of an ancient expeditionary force, those soldiers who live their lives for only one thing, from the vast Sicily assembled, out of the army do not know their return. Inland Sicily runs through the mountains, the active volcanoes make the surface here not as delicate as inland Europe, the typical form is green grassy slopes scattered with black boulders. In traditional agriculture, Sicily may be said to be rough, but Sicily is not barren, as the Mediterranean around the civilization of coitus marriage, Sicily has its own way of survival and the resources of heaven and earth's creations, just the years make it full of vicissitudes, the voluptuous appearance was added to a layer of mourning color, the beauty of Sicily seems to be only a kind of legend.
Farewell to the twilight and decay of Palermo, the Sicilian countryside green and winery wines in the deep red originally thought pale Sicilian countryside rendered like watercolors as pleasing to the eye. Donnafugata in Italian means "runaway woman", I'm not trying to tell you a love story of a woman, it's a story about wine. Donnafugata was born out of a Sicilian family that is considered to be the preeminent example of winemaking in the region, with 150 years of experience in the production of fine wines, and Giacomo Rallo and his wife Gabriella launched a new brand in 1983: Donnafugata, a venture that led the family from producing traditional Sicilian Marsala white wines and owning vineyards only in the west of Sicily, to the entire island of Pantelleria.
Donnafugata is representative of Sicily's burgeoning wine industry, which was born out of a novel. Maria Carolina, the Queen of Hapsburg and wife of Ferdinand IV of Bourbon, took refuge in the castle depicted in the novel to escape the Neapolitan court when Napoleon I's army arrived.
This event inspired a portrait of the woman's head, with her hair flying in the wind, which now appears on every bottle of Donnafugata wine. Today, 6,000 people visit Donnafugata every year, and most of them, like me, taste the wines in the tasting room to jazz music, different flavors of wine to different music, and whether the glass is girlish or womanly in nature, as Jose Rallo (Giacomo Rallo's smart daughter) sings and explains the wine. The innovation of pairing good jazz with good wine has attracted many famous musicians to the event, and Donnafugata's historic family cellar has become a musical stage.
Much of my time in Sicily, apart from brief city tours, was spent traveling through Sicily and visiting wineries, factories and archaeological sites.
I can't remember how many wineries I've been to in total***, and my residual impression seems to be that there's always one meal a day that requires more than an hour's drive to a winery, and later, I love and hate wineries, and I love that there's always wine and food when I go there, and I hate that it's a waste of time on the road to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and back and back and forth. You know, my Sicily can be slightly drunk, but not Moet.
Modica
White clouds, the wind blowing hard, Sicily's green grassy slopes and jagged mountains and rocks from the soles of our feet all the way up to the clouds ...... We were said to be the first Chinese tourists at the archaeological site of Mergantina (Morgantina) - a site hidden away in Sicily. -This site is hidden in the sweeping hills of central Sicily,
Ancient Romans occupied and destroyed the city in 100 BC. The people who serve as docents at these sites are always labeled "archaeologists," and the "archaeologists" are very objective in explaining the structure of the city-state and the speculations made, including the fact that it was American archaeologists who led the excavation of the site. This site gives the impression that the ancient Greeks had a strong sense of public awareness, and when they had the financial resources, they always built public **** facilities first, such as theaters and bathhouses, while their own homes were very simple, which is so different from our modern sense of self-care. And the luxury of the ancient Romans and the superiority of the occupiers is reflected in the mosaic floor paintings in the aristocratic villa of Piazza Armerina.
For travelers, the southeast is the essence of Sicily, and it was here that my walk through Sicily began to reach its climax. Soaked in history and illuminated by the Mediterranean sun, on the southern ridge of the Iblean plateau, the cities of Modica, Ragusa and Scicli still appear to be human dwellings built on rocky outcrops, stubbornly refusing to be intruded upon by the surrounding valleys and plains. Although modern civilization often gets in the way of architectural harmony with some of these cities' historic centers, they remain models of the Late Baroque style that distinguishes Southeastern Sicily from the rest of Sicily.
Anyone who has had the opportunity to visit Modica will have fond memories of the city. Historically, it was ruled by the Romans, then conquered by the Arabs and finally saved by the Normans. Modica was the capital of the province until the 19th century, when the great earthquake of 1693 caused many of the city's inhabitants to move out. Limestone was quarried in large quantities from the nearby valleys and used by skilled craftsmen in the post-Baroque reconstruction of the city. The strong desire of the locals to revitalize the city was translated into reality: monuments, squares, staircases and church towers with a subtle canyon background are widely distributed with dazzling cornices, especially those of the two cathedrals in Ragusa and Modica, which are dedicated to San Giorgio. The stones are transformed into vivid carvings, and the sadness of the earthquake is transformed into flashes of light. Another half of the fond memories of Modica belong to chocolate, famous for its traditional handmade, cold-made chocolate, which is an everyday food like bread here - not a casual confectionery - and a huge chocolate festival is held in Modica every spring. I also noticed a detail in the public **** maps alongside the roads in the city, where the streets are painted in a dark brown color, as if smeared with rich Modica chocolate.
Ragusa is a city standing on a canyon cliff. After sunset it felt to me like the old city of Kashgar in Xinjiang, but more three-dimensional than the old city of Kashgar. Ragusa's distinctive 18th-century architecture makes it unique in the Iberian Baroque region, earning it the nickname "alternative Baroque".
Valley of the Temples
Sicilians live in history. On a flight from Beijing to Rome, a Wenzhou girl in the next seat commented on the language of the Italians as "too lazy, the city is almost the same as it was a hundred years ago." I saw the Sicilian buildings are old, Sicilians have a strong museum complex, even at night to see the show is also a historical drama ......
Agrigento (Agrigento) is a place I have long been looking forward to, claiming that there is "the most spectacular temples outside of Greece", the archaeological site here is the "most magnificent group of temples". Agrigento is a place I've been looking forward to for a long time, claiming to have "the most spectacular group of temples outside of Greece", and an area of archaeological sites that was declared a World Heritage Site by the UN in 1998. The famous Valley of the Temples of Agrigento (Valle dei Templi) dates back to 581 B.C. The Greek city (then called Akragas) lasted for more than a thousand years until the end of the Christian era in the 7th to 9th centuries, when the surviving inhabitants migrated to the hills to the northwest of the city. The vast expanses of majestic architecture preserved in the ancient city form a vast artistic, historical and natural heritage - the Valley of the Temples.
In the Valley of the Temples, the natural environment is in perfect harmony with the majestic temples, the labyrinthine cemeteries and the underground structures, the white petals of the peach trees and the yellow flowers blooming in the grasses along with the crumbling walls, but much of the ancient city and the Roman city is still hidden beneath the vast groves of lentils and olive trees that were created over many centuries.
The most intact building in the Valley of the Temples today is the Temple of Harmony (Tempio della Concordia), built between 450 and 440 B.C. It is the largest Dorian building in Sicily, and the temple is second only to the famous Parthenon in Athens in terms of its completeness, which has become the symbol of Agrigento. The six columns on the front and 34 on the sides of the temple are intact, and as a splendid example of Dorian architecture, it was spared destruction by its conversion into a Christian church in the 6th century. However, of all the nine temples in the Valley of the Temples, it is feared that no more than four can be seen in outline. Most of them have almost blended in with the undulating earth.
This perfect blend of monument and natural landscape has been described in great detail by many visitors, and archaeologists and restoration engineers have continued to excavate and study the area, but unfortunately the few buildings whose outlines are visible have also been marred by scaffolding for restoration, and "speed" is the word that has been asked of the Italians to go to the Valley of the Temples. The "speed" that the Italians are asked to restore and present their 2,000 years of history may not be feasible in itself. Can not enjoy the slow pace of life like the Italians, let me stop for a while, sitting on the thousand years of sun and wind and the fragmentation of the city walls, put down the camera, with slow eyes to look at the green hillside and the distant blue Mediterranean Sea.
Stone streets and three churches
Palermo is the capital of Sicily, and all I remember of the city is the stone streets on the night of my arrival and the three churches I saw two days later. Due to the narrow streets of the old town, the bus that picked us up from the airport and took us to our hotel had to park in a relatively spacious small square, and next, I had to drag my suitcase and walk through a long alleyway. The rain has stopped, the mottled stone road is shining green under the dim light, the clothes sticking out of the balcony and the stone walls that have been standing for hundreds of years are above my head, and the night is humid. The suitcase thumped and jumped over every square brick, in a trance time and space dislocation, as if back to the water town of Jiangnan that year. A small car with open windows and loud electronic music slowly drove past the other end of the alley, and I got excited and yelled "Hi" at the car's butt like a punk. Yes, that's what brought me back to Sicily, and I really wanted to spend a few days in this remote land like a Sicilian punk! Look at this island standing at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, this mysterious land that has been blown every inch of the way by the gale of history.
Before describing the churches of Palermo, I could say a few words about the history of Sicily. Sicily is Italy's largest island, triangular in shape and located exactly in the middle of the Mediterranean waters. Its special geographic location makes it extremely vulnerable to attacks by foreign forces, first the Greek invasion, the Greeks made the island's cities quickly flourished, a lot of magnificent and brilliant ancient buildings and exquisite sculpture at that time as a spring like scattered in all corners of the Sicilian island. With the decline of Greece, Sicily was successively occupied by the Roman Empire, the Arabs and the Normans, who ruled from the 11th to the 12th century. It was during this period that the artistic and spiritual culture of the region rose to prominence. Therefore, in Sicily to visit the monuments, often let a person forget that this is Sicily, what you see and hear is always inseparable from the Greek, Arab, Roman, Norman and other words. Sicily is a wonderful "mix and match".
The Norman King Roger would never have imagined that his 12th-century church, the Palatina, would become one of Palermo's greatest attractions more than 800 years later. The chapel, which belonged to him personally, reflects the synthesis of architectural styles that prevailed in Sicily during the Norman rule, with ancient Roman columns supporting its Romanesque interior and a Moorish wooden vaulted ceiling decorated with Arabesque mosaics. The decorative motifs of the wooden ceiling are exquisite and intricate, reflecting the clothing, food, housing and transportation of the Arabs at that time, with an artistic value similar to that of our "Qingming Shanghe Tu". The main church of Palermo was visible from a distance on my way to the hotel on my first night in Sicily.
It was only when I walked into the main church during the day that I realized that the stone of the building was honey-colored, and that it was begun in 1184, a monument that can be said to chronicle the history of the Normans. in the 18th century, the church was redecorated inside, but the exterior retains that synthesis of style uniqueness: the doors are a mixture of Catalan and Gothic styles, lavishly executed 15th-century pieces. For the church, as an atheist, I seem to be able to stay only on the scale of the building and decorative details of the observation, even if I walk in with reverence, in the priest's prayers solemn, but ultimately there is still a distant distance from God.
The third church, Monreal, is a huge castle-like complex of the same period and style as the main church of Palermo, but about an hour away from downtown Palermo.
Because Monreal is alone in a town on a hill, it's especially imposing and enduring, removed from the noise and decay of the city. The sprawling gardens and long arabesque cloisters are unlike any other church, and the black strips of stone collected from volcanic rock on the exterior walls and its castle-like size remind me of religious power and the fusion of many ethnic groups - a brutal process that could have taken place through blood and fire.
Catania
It's strange to see cacti all over Sicily, which are said to produce red fruit in the summer. I didn't get to eat the red "cactus fruit", but almost every day I had red blood orange juice for breakfast - a Sicilian specialty.
Catania's magnificent Piazza Duomo and bustling Via Etnea, with snow-covered Mount Etna in the background, made me throw myself onto Via Etnea without hesitation.
Catania is Sicily's most famous tourist city, which relies on its three unique cultural and artistic treasures: the city of Baroque art, the home of musician Bellini, and the active volcano Etna. Catania has a long history, having been founded in 729 BC during the Ancient Greek period. Because of its location, Catania was one of the first towns in Sicily to be occupied by the Romans, and then by the Byzantines, Arabs and Normans.
Multiculturalism has been a source of excitement here, engraving Catania with the imprints of different periods. One of Catania's proudest figures is the famous opera composer Bellini, who was born in the city of Catania in 1801. He was a man of great talent, and his music was so delicate that he was called "the Chopin of opera music". Bellini died young at the age of 34, but created a lot of immortal masterpieces of music, Bellini's opera is very rich in romanticism, melodious and beautiful, many arias in the opera are still regarded as the classic teaching materials of the "American singing method".
Catania is best known for Mount Etna, which at 3,323 meters above sea level is the highest, largest and most active volcano in Europe. Etna has erupted more than 200 times so far, the most in the world. Although the city of Catania in the history of the Etna volcano havoc, has been buried 9 times by volcanic ash, but it is always tenacious from the ashes of new life, as the Catania clock on the inscription "I regenerate from the ashes of my own". The most recent eruption of Etna was in September 2004, and all the major photo agencies published pictures of Etna with the city of Catania below. That scene must have been the ultimate experience in life.
Taormina, an hour's drive from Catania, was the perfect end to my time in Sicily.
It sits halfway up the Tauro, like an agave in full bloom, gorgeous, flirty and smooth. Taormina has an open view and a fascinating landscape, with the sparkling blue Ionian Sea visible to the east and the snow-capped Etna volcano crowning it to the southwest. With monuments, waters, snow-capped mountains and scantily clad Italians, all the ingredients for a perfect vacation spot are present, and all that can be done is keep your eyes peeled. At the highest point of Mount Taur is the ruins of an ancient Greek opera house. Built between 300 BC, the opera house is the second largest theater site in Sicily, with the longest measuring 209 meters in diameter. When Rome invaded and occupied Sicily in 200 A.D., this ancient opera house became a gathering place for the upper-class figures of ancient Rome at that time, and water tanks were dug in the performance area for staging naval battles, which the Romans loved to watch.
In this broken wall, associated with the prosperity of ancient times as well as the smoke of war, the mood as a pair of large hands covered with sunshine soothing, time in the gap between the fingers of quicksand like quietly flow away ......