Daring to dream of Sicily?
It’s the combination of waiting and not knowing that is most frustrating. Here we are, in beautiful Aubeterre-Sur-Dronne, enjoying the sunshine and 30-degree heat, whilst eating lovely food and enjoying trips to the Dordogne. What could be nicer? Yet, a significant part of my thoughts resides in Arbatax, wondering what progress, if any, is being made on Missy Bear by the shipyard.
It’s only been a week-and-a-half since the haul-out. I don’t want to pester Elena (the only one at OYS who speaks English), as she is heavily pregnant, or has very recently just had the baby delivered by a planned Caesarean section. Although I am of a very impatient disposition, I have to coach myself to relax and rely on the knowledge that the surveyor (appointed by the insurance company) will remain in touch with the yard, and issue a report on completion.
I am trying not to think of where we would have been sailing now; maybe the Aeolion islands or Syracuse or beyond? But these places are timeless, and will not disappear in the interim. They will still be there for us to discover (unless earthquakes or volcanos decide otherwise). I also hope that the autumnal weather will be kind to us, when we eventually arrive [Alix: yeah, me too].
We have managed to make one key decision though during our wait: we will not push on to Gocek this year. We would have to press on too much. Tony has offered to come out to Catania, Siciliy and do some seriously long legs and overnight passages, to get us well on our way. But Alix wouldn’t enjoy that, and I’m not sure I want to speed past all those lovely places, when the prevailing north-east winds will make them less accessible to return to. As we have an 18-month transit period, to leave EU waters, we have all next year to achieve that.
We have decided, therefore, to overwinter in Preveza (mainland Greek coast in the Ionian, where we have holidayed before with Sari and Thorne). There are a couple of marinas there, where we can get hauled out. We will probably choose Cleopatra marina, and I will explain that name in a much later blog I expect. There are technicians there, who will be able to do the annual maintenance tasks, as well as performing the 250-hour engine service.
Next spring - assuming the Corinth Canal is still closed for landslide repairs - we can then simply enjoy a leisurely run or reach southward through the western Ionian, the around the three fingers of the Peloponnese, and pick our weather window to get around the Cape Maleas into the Aegean. The cape is windy; so much so that Homer describes how Odysseus got blown of course here, on his westwards journey home to Ithaca, and ended up being lost for 10 years. Not quite Cape Horn, but not to be taken for granted.
For now, we can sit here in France and plan a more leisurely autumn sail around the Ionian, after our visit to the northern coast of Sicily.
The island where east met west.
It’s strange to call it the football to Italy’s boot, as the island is basically triangular. Geologically, Sicily is essentially a continuation of the Apennines on mainland Italy, separated by a tiny sliver of sea called the Straits of Messina. To the east of these peaks lies the African tectonic plate, and to the west, the Eurasian plate. The former has been moving and sliding under the latter for millennia, pushing up these mountains, and the process continues to make life exciting for residents of nearby Etna (and Stromboli and Vesuvius).
Historically, the fabled Straits of Messina – that link from the Tyrrhenian Sea in the north to the Ionian Sea in the south – is a maelstrom of currents and whirlpools. But to avoid that turmoil involves a long sail around the island, so sailors have always braved the legendary hazards.
As Tunisia is only 80 miles away to the south-west across the Sicilian Channel, it seems (to me at least) that Sicily forms the gateway between the eastern and western Mediterranean. Certainly, in cultural terms, the eastern coast of the island was colonised by the Greeks, and it formed part of Magna Graecia (greater Greece), along with the Italy’s sole, arch and heel....and lower shin. There remain tiny pockets of Greek speaking people here (but possibly due to later migrations of Greeks escaping the Ottomans?) The major Greek city was Syracuse, home of Archimedes. I would love to visit it.
The seafaring Phoenicians had got to the island before the Greeks, but they focussed at first on the western end, largely because it was so close to their own city state of Carthage (close to modern Tunis). As we know, the Phoenicians were merchants, who tended to like trade not war, but they did clash with the Greeks on the island. But worse was to come for them, when the Romans set out to annex Sicily. During the Punic wars between the two, some Greek cities, such as Syracuse, sided with the Carthaginians. Archimedes’ engineering prowess, in designing catapults and cranes to harangue the Roman fleet as it approached the city walls, was one reason the Roman siege of the city took so long to succeed. In the chaos of the sacking, and despite Roman orders to protect him, Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier [Alix: you see, it’s all very well having principles…]
Then, like elsewhere on our route so far, the Germanic peoples swept southwards across Europe, as the western Roman Empire fell. The Vandals got to Africa, and sailed to Sicily from there. But it was the Ostrogoths who eventually won Sicily. And, fascinatingly for me, they were actually on the payroll of the eastern Roman, or Byzantine, Emperor. Sicily was then used as a base by the Byzantine empire to try and recapture the lost Italian lands. It was just another game of Risk. In fact, the eastern empire’s capital was temporarily moved to Syracuse from Constantinople in 660.
In a pattern now familiar to us, the Muslims then swept westwards from Arabia, conquering most of what lay before them, including Sicily. But - and even prior to the Crusades – the Byzantine Empire fought back. I find it fascinating that they were already using Norman mercenaries in 1038.
Later, and in their own right, the Normans, led by the Roger I (of the Hauteville family from near Cherbourg), invaded Sicily in 1061, after taking southern Italy from the Byzantine Empire. Their conquest was completed thirty years later in 1091. His son, Roger II of Sicily, created The Kingdom of Sicily in 1130, which also comprised the Maltese Islands and the mainland Duchies of Apulia and Calabria. It was a fertile, wealthy and prosperous kingdom, and thus coveted.
Often in history - it seems to me - the inability of a ruler to generate a male heir causes the worst sort of problem. This happened in Sicily to the Norman line. To cut a very long story short, the Kingdom was passed around like the triangular football it is, until it ended up with the House of Anjou (or Angevins). And it is now, at the end of the 13th century, where our old friend the Crown of Aragon stepped in to continue their eastwards expansion!
The Aragonese took advantage of the fact that the local Sicilians did not like their French rulers and had risen up against them. Peter III of Aragon supported the Sicilians, all the French were killed, and Peter succeeded as King of Sicily under the Crown of Aragon.
The French retained their mainland territories, that they kept known as the Kingdom of Sicily (but was now de facto the Kingdom of Naples.) The French Pope was, however, not happy that the French had lost the island, but his subsequent crusade (the ‘Aragonese Crusade’) against Peter, on the island but also back home in Catalonia – eventually failed. Isn’t it fascinating to see how the supreme divine power on Earth chooses which side to back in a conflict?
The rest of the history of Sicily has been painted with a broad brush in my previous blog, ‘Why did Sardinians fight in the Crimean War?’, so I won’t repeat it here. Suffice to say that the reading for this overview has certainly given me a good idea of the sorts of things we might like to see. (Alix, meanwhile, has been doing the research on food and drink, much of which will have Arabian influences, I’m sure.)
The first place I’d like us to visit is the craggy, hill town of Erice, near Trapani, on the north-westernmost of the three corners. I like visiting places, like Cagliari and Rhodes for example, where it is possible to see remnants of the successive layers of civilisation. Apparently, there are Phoenician walls, Muslim and Norman castles (built on the ruins of an ancient temple), medieval streets and over remaining 60 churches, many dating from Norman and Aragonese times.