21 March 2024 – Marzamemi

Miles driven today = 0

Total Miles to date = 2,590

We didn’t pick Marzamemi as a stopover point for any reason other than it had a well reviewed Sosta on the coast and was positioned somewhere between Ragusa and Syracuse.  There is no specific mention of it in the Rough Guide but it turns out we have been very fortunate in our choice.  We got the bikes out of the garage this morning so that we could pedal into town and have a closer look.

Marzamemi is derived from the Arabic “marsa memi”, meaning “safe harbour". It actually has two natural harbours, the first of which nowadays houses a yachting marina full of fancy looking pleasure craft.

The second harbour has more in the way of small fishing boats and a sandy beach.

It was the Arabs who first developed a tuna fishery here 1,000 years ago and over the course of time Marzamemi became the most important “tonnara” in all of Sicily.  A lot of the buildings from its golden era still exist and have been repurposed as shops, restaurants and B&Bs.

This is the main Piazza with the Church of San Francesco de Paola, one of two Churches on the Square.

I don’t know anything about the history of this place on an island at the harbour mouth, but what a fabulous place to have a house.

We continued to follow the coast to the North.  This is the Spinazza Beach.

And this is the beach a little further up the coast at San Lorenzo.

We got to a point where the road headed inland and the coastal route continued as a rough track through a nature reserve so we chained up the bikes and continued on foot.  I mentioned yesterday how dry stone walling is very much a thing in this part of Sicily and here’s the evidence.  I reckon any Yorkshire farmer would be proud to have that keeping his flock from straying.

We had read about ancient cart tracks having dug grooves in the rocks along the path so we assumed that this was one of them.

The view across the nature reserve.  You can just about make out a wetland area in the distance which is an important birdlife habitat.

Wild thyme, a few sprigs of which found the way into our bag for culinary purposes in the van.

After about half a mile the track was blocked by some very serious looking gates so we backtracked and picked up the bikes before making our way back down to the beach via the nearest private road.  We found a few vans camped down there in quite idyllic surroundings with one guy practicing his accordion.

On the rocks to the left of this building you can make out a small memorial to 17 migrants who perished off the coast here in 2007.  Nothing changes.  Just last week 60 migrants died on a vessel which lost power while trying to make the crossing from Libya.

We pedaled back to Marzamemi.  There is a small lagoon just outside the town which had a whole flock of flamingos wading around in the shallow waters.  They did a fly-past earlier but I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo.

We’ve been very remiss.  I’ve commented in previous blogs how much we love a good seafood platter but we haven’t had one so far this trip.  So what better surroundings than these to rectify that omission.

We plonked ourselves down at a harbourside restaurant and both ordered the mixed grilled seafood with a tomato salad and a bottle of grillo.  It was brilliant!

Whilst cycling through the village earlier Lisa spotted a Sicilian deli and wanted to call in for a look round on our way back to the van.  Given the history of the place, there was every conceivable way of preparing tuna on offer.

One of my guilty pleasures back home is smoked cod roe and I’ll often buy a chunk off Dave the fishmonger at our local market to spread on my toast.  I’ve never tried tuna roe so this basket of goodies caught my attention, probably a little more so than it would have done if my judgement hadn’t been slightly impaired by the Grillo.  I thought the packs were €8:50 each so I grabbed what looked like being one of the largest ones.  Turns out that was the price per 100g and the actual cost was double that.  So what with lunch and some very pricy fish eggs I’ve blown the budget somewhat today.  But as they say, you can’t take it with you.

22 March 2024 - Hello Noto