Snippets from Marina di Ragusa, Sicily

We’re now into our last few days living in Marina di Ragusa, where we spent Thanksgiving. Marina di Ragusa is a seashore town, which lies about 24 km from the main town of Ragusa. While the town of Ragusa dates to the 2nd millennium B.C., Marina di Ragusa was founded around the 5th century B.C. as a Greek port called Marsa A'Rillah (small port). The Italians renamed it Marina di Ragusa in 1928.

In the 1960’s the town went from a sleepy fishing village to a tourist resort. As we mentioned in the last blog entry, in the summer this town averages about 60,000 people, but in the winter the population drops to about 3,500. Many British sail enthusiasts moor their boats here in the winter. As one Brit says, “…during the summer months, the prices go up, the beaches are jam-packed and there are lines at every café, restaurant, and bar. During the winter, Marina di Ragusa is inexpensive, the beaches are calm and there is never a queue at the cafés!” [1]

We can attest that the beaches are calm (on days when it isn’t raining and windy that is) and there are no lines at local restaurants. As a matter of fact, many of the restaurants are closed for the season. And, when you find one open, like we did the other day, there were only two tables occupied—ours and one other…but service was fast!

This place reminds us of a Jersey shore town in winter. However, it’s not as quiet as we expected. We’re directly across from the main part of the marina, where hundreds of boats are moored. At night, the town folk seem to gather near our apartment to talk and watch the World Cup on a big screen TV at the bar across the street. Even though Italy didn’t make the World Cup this year, these “football” fans yell and scream for goals made and goals missed. Here’s a picture of the bar and sandwich shop during the morning…but at night it’s a different story. Trust us, the noise goes on until 1:00 am many nights.

Our bar and sandwich shop

Other than our bar's patrons, it’s quiet here. We’ve walked around the town and there’s not much going on. We did see a watchtower known as Torre Cabrera, which was built next to the port of the village due to Saracen ships sailing this stretch of sea. The town square is a nice place to sit in the sun and watch people go by…even though they’re few and far between. Nancy took the picture of the building with the white doors, she liked the disconnect between the old stone and the newer white doors.

Around one corner of the square, we found pizza wings, where John took Nancy’s picture.

One of our favorite places to visit in Marina di Ragusa is the grocery store. Very similar to our supermarkets, but with some interesting differences. You want fish? Well, you can take your pick of fresh fish, which they’ll clean and even cook your choice or scoop your own freeze-dried pieces of things like tuna and even mussels.

John loves the fact that you can buy whole rabbits at the grocery store…in the winter he often makes a rabbit ragu, which he serves over polenta. Click here for the recipe.

Rabbit Ragu from Epicurious.com

Another odd different thing we see in the markets is mortadella. Mortadella is an Italian sausage or luncheon meat made of ground cured pork, which incorporates at least 15% small cubes of pork fat. It is traditionally flavored with black pepper grains and may contain pistachios. It’s like American baloney, which until this very moment (and a Google search) I did not know was derived from Italian mortadella. Either way, and I know we’ll get push back from some Italian-Americans, both meats “may be classified as one of the least healthy foods in the Western diet.” [According to nutritionfacts.org] Anyway, mortadella in the grocery stores comes in giant wheels—the better to clog the arteries of the whole family.

One other thing John saw in the grocery store was a wine called Mateus rose. Those of you old enough will remember Mateus from the cheesy commercials in the early 70’s (that video brought back memories of when many of us thought we knew wine). We didn’t buy a bottle; we didn’t want to bring back too many bad memories of youthful indiscretions.

While we're talking about wine, we should mention that we're both familiar with the wonderful wines of Tuscany, where even the house half carafes are excellent. In southern Italy and especially Sicily we've been very disappointed by the wines. Plus, we've yet to find a restaurant that has carafes of house wine--you either buy a glass or a whole bottle. Oh well, tough choice!

While we’ve been here it’s been off and on rainy. Earlier this week you may have read about the heavy rains that tore through the island of Ishia, off the coast of Naples, which is northwest of our location. That storm caused a mudslide that killed several people. Here in Marina di Ragusa, we sat inside through two days of pelting rain from the same storm. The marina is protected by high harbor walls, so it looked like all the boats were safe.

Speaking of boats. On one of the sunny days, we took a walk around the marina. Most of the boats are large expensive looking sailboats, but we were taken by their simpler cousins, what John called “Popeye boats.” Most looked like they were used mainly for fishing.

Well, that’s pretty much all there is from Marina di Ragusa. Next week we take off for our last two weeks in Sicily to the town of Catania on the east coast.

Later,

Nancy and John