la bella sicilia (part three)

i vendicari

i went to texas and left everyone hanging with the sicily pics! sorry about that. i'm back, and ready to continue the display, especially because i have pics from texas i now need to put up...so many images, so little time.

this part is the town of noto and my rental car adventures from syracuse to agrigento. noto is quite lovely and i wish i had more than a day to explore it--the entire town was destroyed by an earthquake in the late 17th century then completely rebuilt by the end of the same century. all the buildings are the same color and are high baroque, meaning there are crazy waves in the façades. the second set of pictures are from the drive, which was an adventure in and of itself. learning to drive in houston and being generally aggressive helped me tremendously to drive *well* in sicily, which is such a loaded phrase it defies clarification. no one drives well in sicily. you just hang on and pray a lot, faithful or no. enjoy!

noto with a cornerful of hoodlums

pretty stairs--surprisingly regular

noto is built on a steep hill, and this is one of the more gentle examples

crazy baroque fountain

beautiful concave façade area near noto's duomo

from the front of noto's duomo--the tilt-shift isn't working as well as i'd like here, but it still gives an idea of the feel of the space

driving to agrigento in my bitchin' ford escort! the almond trees were blooming everywhere you looked

some very tall mountain passes, senza guardrails, to be had in sicily

adorable little cinquecento--i wish my life allowed me a toy like this

you never know what you're going to see from the road in sicily: elephants...

...or further proof sicilians hate their children...

...but i think this is my favorite--via charles darwin in gela

also there are tons of bikers on the road who must have the biggest huevos in the entire nation because those roads were dangerous for those of us encased in metal

and, of course, massively impressive greek (yes, greek) ruins

next time: the ruins of agrigento and other sites in NW sicily!