In the summer northern Italy is thronged with tourists. People are used to camera-clicking vacationers and Eurorail pilgrims treating their towns
like Disneyland. But in parts of southern Italy and Sicily, a foreign woman with an enormous backpack is still a novelty. When I traveled to a far-flung
Sicilian town, away from the path well worn by American tourists, I was flooded with open curiosity and warmth.
The town of Trapani, 95 km from Palermo, sits on a narrow curl of land curving into the Mediterranean. Legend has it the land was formed when
Ceres, the goddess of the hearth, dropped a sickle as she searched for her daughter, Persephone, who was held captive under the earth. Trapani was most
powerful in the Baroque era, under Charles V, but the harbor, a historic hub, still buzzes with fishermen and cruise ships headed for northern Africa.
My pensione was in an opulent and crumbling courtyard laced with laundry lines. The third floor room had a narrow terrace and I leaned out over
the wrought iron bars to watch people walk down the alley. Four yards away, in another building, a signora in a flowered housedress was chain smoking
and rocking fast in her chair. I could see her slip back in forth in the window, her face lit with the television glow. A younger woman folded laundry
on the couch. She went to her terrace to ash her cigarette over the side and greeted me. Is the television too loud, she asked from across the alley, is
anything disturbing you? I assured her everything was fine, and she smiled and wished me good night.
In Sicily, I became accustomed to these small slips of kindness, from open smiles to shared meals or welcoming words. The next morning, at
Trapani's post office, a gentleman in a brushed black hat hovered over me as I paid for my postage. He motioned me over to a table where he wet my
stamps with a flick of his tongue and stuck them to my letters home. After he slipped the letters into the mail slot, he walked me to the post office
steps. He pointed me towards the bus station, then tipped his elegant hat.
As a woman traveling alone in southern Italy, I was warned to watch my back. But by the end of my week in Sicily, I was smiling back at policemen
and greeting old signoras on the street. On the last night of my visit, I ate at a tiny Palermo pizzeria with whitewashed walls. It was near closing
time, and the restaurant was empty, but the sullen cook still fired up the wood oven to bake my dinner. After finishing a perfect pizza studded with fat
black olives, I sat back satisfied, overcome with a desire to return the kindness I'd been shown. As I left the pizzeria, I saw the cook smoking a
cigarette in an alley. 'Siete un artista della pizza', I exclaimed and kissed my fingers. As I turned down the alley towards my train the cook
wiped his hands on his apron and blushed.
This article was written by staff writer Rachel Young. |
