Free Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes Page A

The vegetables appear ten minutes before the main course. We get someone else's grilled fish but by then we don't care. It's all good anyway.
    The next morning when I am out walking alone early, a car whizzes by me and stops. The woman chef from the restaurant jumps out of her car, takes my hand, and tells me how lovely to see me again, that I must come back. She has trailing scarves and stacks of jewelry on her wrists. I definitely would go back.
    Â 
    We're ready to put in a full day on foot. In the museum on Ortigia, Caravaggio's painting of the burial of Santa Lucia, a local virgin martyr in 304, who cut out her own eyes when a suitor admired them, occasioned a lecture from the guard worthy of any docent. And where are we from? Ah, he has a cousin in California; we should meet him when we return. Ed loves Annunciation paintings and the peeling one by da Messina enthralls him. Small local museums are my favorite kind. They stay close to the source, usually, and deepen a tourist-level connection with a place.
    We walk across the bridge, through a park, then through a honeycomb of streets. The Museo Archeologico in Siracusa proper is world class. Intelligently arranged and exhibited, the art and craft of succeeding waves of life in this area are displayed. Beginning with prehistory, we trace the eras through one stunning room after another. Artifacts, statues, lion faces from the temple in ruins in Ortigia, Greek ex-votos, and an amazing bronze horse—oh, so much.
    The amphitheater in Siracusa—what fabulous siting. The stone cup of the hill was chopped out into natural seating, a 300-degree arrangement focusing on a stage. Corridors were carved out for gladiators to enter and exit. In summer, the Greek plays are still performed here. What fun it would be to act in one. The ruins we've seen are the major ones; hundred of other temples, foundations, baths, and unknown stones cover the island. This must be the ideal time to see them because hardly anyone is around. The solitude of these places sharpens the experience of happening upon them, the sense of discovery that for me lies at the heart of travel.
    We vaguely hear a thunderstorm in the night but are so thoroughly exhausted from our day that nothing really wakes us until about three o'clock. The room's wraparound glass creaks ominously in its frames and the bed feels as though someone is shaking the headboard. Earthquake. We leap up and look out at the harbor, where quiet boats just seem to be rocking with the water. We wait, as we have other on nights in San Francisco, for whatever comes next. We've experienced so many by now that we can judge the force on the Richter scale, although the 7.5 quake of October 1989 was so far beyond what we'd felt before that we had no idea. I think of what must have existed in Sicily before the earthquake of 1693 knocked down whole areas. But tonight's was only a hard jolt, perhaps 3.4, a reminder that the earth has its own rhythms having nothing to do with us.
    Â 
    In the inland Baroque town of Noto, we come upon my fearful fantasy of the Mafia funeral. Maybe it is only a local patriarch laid to rest but we turn the corner and are among mourners with big jewelry and two Mercedes-Benz sedans. A coffin is hauled into the church on the shoulders of men who could play parts in a refilming of
The Godfather.
Three women weep behind veils. I grab Ed's arm and we turn around quickly.
    We've backtracked to visit Noto, not only for another taste of the interior of the country but for the taste of ice cream. A gourmet guide to Italy promises the best ice cream in Sicily is here on a back street. I try the tangerine, melon, and jasmine sorbets. Ed chooses almond, coffee, and pistachio
gelato.
In Italy, one always orders several flavors in the same cup. He tastes all of mine and I taste all of his. We're convinced. A cold slanted rain begins. We get our raincoats and umbrella out of the car and walk anyway. Might as well get soaked—who