Read Online Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes - Free Book Online

columns fill one area. Fallen, lying in pieces, they look even more massive. We take a walk downhill toward the ruins on the edge of the sea. This approach shows us the outline of the sixth-century B.C. golden columns against blue water. In soft air, we sit on a rock and stare at surely one of the great classical scenes in the universe. The names “Temples C, G, E” seem ludicrous. Again, we are alone at the site. Having seen the metopes in Palermo, it's easy to imagine them positioned around the top but not easy to imagine how the Greeks managed to get them up there.
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    Fancy thoughts of paradisiacal spring don't last long. Soon the scene out the car window changes to fields totally encased in hideous plastic. Growing vegetables under plastic-covered hoops surely extends the growing season and improves farm economy, but it blights the landscape. The growers have been thorough—as far as you can see, the sheen of plastic. No vegetable is as tortured and managed as the tomato. Those grown under plastic look better than they taste. Only direct sun infuses tomatoes with flavor, awakens the full taste. Good Sicilian cooks must wait for summer to make their tomato sauce.
    Many of the towns we dip into are hideous. A fifty-year ban on cement should be imposed. Historic centers are often smothered by postwar concrete, mainly in the form of apartment towers, which form instant slums. The oil and chemical plants don't add to the
bellezza
either. Much of the coast we pass is ruined—everywhere, the phenomenon of buildings started then abandoned halfway along. Plenty of money must be paid for start-up and somehow the project dissolves. Too many payoffs?
    Fear in the air probably stops most people from having normal initiative; better to lie low. Having only been here a few days, I feel waves of rage about the Mafia. I can't imagine what it must be like actually to
live
under the pall of their serious evil. I never hear the word “Mafia” from anyone; as a tourist, I wouldn't. Even leading questions are routed around so that answers don't have to involve speculations. Small rocks on Mars can be inspected. Babies can be made in glass dishes. I don't understand why the Mafia can't be stopped.
    Imagine Sicily without the Mafia, imagine the spirits of the people lifting. . . .
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    I'm glad I don't have to take a test on Agrigento. For an American used to a comparatively straightforward history, all the Italian past seems hopelessly convoluted. The saga of the Greek ruins multiplies this complexity. Agrigento, since its Greek founding in the sixth century B.C. , has been tossed among Carthaginians, Romans, Swabians, Arabians, Bourbons, and Spaniards. Subjected to a name change during Mussolini's zeal to Italianize all things, the old name Akragas became Agrigento. I've seen the same zeal on the plaque outside where John Keats lived in Rome, cut off from his love and dying from tuberculosis. He's called Giovanni Keats, which somehow makes him seem more vulnerable than ever.
    Akragas/Agrigento was Luigi Pirandello's birthplace. Travelling in Sicily casts his plays and stories, with their quirky sense of reality, in quite a natural light. The coexistence of the Greek ruins, the contemporary ruins, the tentacles of the Mafia, and the mundane day-to-day would skew my sense of character and place, too. The sun, Pirandello wrote, can break stones. Even in March, we feel the driving force on our heads as we walk in the Valley of the Temples.
    All over a valley of almond trees and wildflowers stands a mind-boggling array of remains from an ancient town, from temples to sewer pipes. You could stay for days and not see everything. Unlike other sites, this one is quite populated with visitors. The Temple of Concordia is the best-preserved temple we've seen. Patch up the roof and the populace could commune with Castor and Pollux, to whom it probably was dedicated.
    Five days ago I knew almost nothing about these ruins. Now