Montalbano

As many of you know, Terry is a major fan of Montalbano, a Sicilian detective series on SBS Television in Australia. In fact, one of our reasons for choosing Licata as our winter port was its proximity to many of the locations used in the series, as well as the birthplace of Andrea Camilleri who wrote the novels on which it is based. There is huge local enthusiasm for Camilleri and Montalbano: I think Sicilians appreciate having their island associated with a good guy for a change, rather than being known only as the home of the Mafia.

Back in November we took a trip to Agrigento, with a side visit to Porto Empedocle which is the setting for many of the books and close to Camilleri’s former home in the country. After much debate and discussion amongst various locals, we established that the old man is still alive (viva, non morte!), over eighty years of age, living in Rome and has another Montalbano novel coming out this year. There are statues in the town to both the author and the hero of his books.
Last week, Terry and several fellow enthusiasts organised a “Montelbano Tour” to several of the significant TV series locations. We tried to do it via a commercial tour site, but they didn’t bother to respond to repeated messages so we opted to DIY. We were to share a hire car with friends Bernard and Lora from La Lisa, while Ginny and Guy of Kirsty II and their visitors took another.
Unfortunately, our “hire car” which was somebody’s Zio’s car, had a dicky battery and wouldn’t start.  We’re sure they knew this as there were jumper leads in the boot!

As a backstop, we went in Bernard and Lora’s van.  Ok for Bernard and Terry in the front but not so good for Lora and Carol in the back.  Still, we had a bit of fun back there with a running commentary on the scenery coming from the front.

First stop was the castle of Donna Fugata. First glances would suggest that this castle has something to do with a Lady who Flees or is fleeing.  Nope, it is actually a derivative of an Arabic word that passed into the Sicilian dialect as Ronnafuata that means Source of Health.  To confuse matters, there actually was in residence the widowed Queen Bianca of Navarra who was fleeing a sod who needed to marry her to become King of Sicily but she wasn’t having any of that.  The Arabic/Sicilian predates her by a long way.  The castle was sold to the District of Ragusa some 20+ years ago and is very popular with locals and even northerners on holiday.  The grounds are very nice indeed.

Don Balduccio's Terrace

The Montalbano link?  In the series, it is the stronghold of one Balduccio Sinagra, the ageing but still revered Mafia boss of the region around Montalbano’s territory and Montalbano occasionally visits Don Balduccio on the terrace.

Next it was on to Ragusa to the restaurant A Rusticana, Montalbano’s eating house.  Old Ragusa is a locals-only car zone so we had to park a long way from the restaurant and walk down something like 3,000 steps, then up a similar amount.

Ragusa

The restaurant itself is a simple Trattoria so it doesn’t pride itself on anything in particular but what we had, all eight of us, was very nice indeed. 

There are photos and autographs on one wall of members of the cast (unfortunately, no pictures of Catarella!)

Lora and Terry outside Montalbano's restaurant

From Ragusa, it was off to Scicli, a very nice little city indeed, called by one Italian writer the most beautiful city on earth.   The town hall in Scicli is used as the site of Montalbano’s boss’s office, the pompous  Bonetti-Alderighi, the Questore of Montelusa. We asked the lady managing the office if she had ever met Luca Zingaretti, the actor who plays Montalbano. She fluttered a hand over her heart and said simply, 'Si!'

Old Sicilian men watching the world go by

 We were put back by our earlier mishaps and didn’t have time available to do all we wanted but it was nice to be able to visit some of the places we’ve seen in the series.  Ragusa and Scicli are very elegant cities to visit – no street rubbish and very few dogs (and dogs' doings).

Scicli

Unfortunately we enjoyed Ragusa so much that we ran out of time to visit Montalbano's villa at Punta Secca, but it's important to leave something for next time...

The Questore's Office with Terry sitting in Montalbano's accustomed chair