To Distant Areas-II: Sicily. Part Third.

I wasn’t in desire to ride to Villa Romana del Casale in the next day by believing I will look on mosaics without exciting curiosity. Nevertheless, I didn’t intend to change plans. I sat in the car in the morning.

A route moved to wishful secondary routes through which I wanted to see a total authentic Sicily. I crossed industrial zone Dittaino and a couple of small towns. All of them seemed abandoned some time ago due to nothing indicate on presence of people. It was a rarity to see a transport there. My mood to the island was same.

Italians are capable to show correctness on roads by switching on a left turn for demonstration of outrun but not everybody can react on that. However, in this country usually don't know how to use turns in relocating on other lane or don’t understand a necessity to activate an “alarm signal” if do a sudden stop. I was forced to take driver’s functions by giving a horn signal to riding and walking men and demonstrating insult gestures. I will not make a joke here but it would be correct if an Italian government will allocate a budget on educating of own citizens in how to use turns at least.

You pay 17 euros for Villa Romana del Casale but you get two tickets where a first for a place I wanted to visit, which cost is 14  euros, and 3 euros for locations on which my wish to see them wasn’t asked. Natural balance, which I described before, included a ticket salesman who said I will find a map on a territory of sight after I asked him about it. His answer “inside” in his few-word English wasn’t true. I saw that piece of paper in the hands of a couple of pairs at a ticket booth. Perhaps, they took them in a souvenir zone. Anyway, it didn’t require because this was a little museum which had a linear route.

I already didn’t like that tiles were put in entrance hall when watched on images in preparation of iteration. That, as always, deprived period’s authenticity. Same feeling was in watching on this in real.

I experienced expected. I didn’t linger in looking on mosaics. I recalled alike designs on train stations and villas. I applaud to painstaking work but I wasn’t amazed in plots and it looked that I visit a country house of a man who doesn’t know what to do with a lot of money. “Polyphemus receiving a cup from Ulysses” became an exception. There I saw artistry in personages, a structure of plot and occupied night.

Villa Romana del Casale was a second place on which I’ve learnt that it has a mass visiting. But I had a good day again because this location was little in people and I could move free. That lack of terrible was in alongside with heat, which didn’t disturb me. Perhaps, my adaptation to high degrees in Tuscany is earned ability. However, I still a winter man and feel myself on place in cold seasons.

It's a usual thing that a film director doesn't see original places described in a book or events happened in these locations as attractive and he chooses more fitting in his vision. Corleone isn't a pretty town and I hadn't intention to visit it. Not a village for artist's painting when I was paging photos. It seems that Francis Ford Coppola had when decided to make filming The Godfather movies on the eastern coast of Sicily instead in the island’s west. I recalled on flicks short time before I was going to begin my stages.

I entered in Acireale, which unattractive third-world country aesthetics included a Negro at traffic light who offered to wash a car by holding a rag and a sprinkler. I didn’t see that phenomenon since nineties when I had business in post-Commie Muscovy states in which teenage or before that age boys walked among automobiles and presented that service. I was slightly away from a Black guy who was on the another lane and he didn’t hurry in walking in front of a transport when a light became green.

Visiting of The Godfather movies’ locations was movement to the depths of Sicily. I rode through little roads and they were spacious and incomparable with Scotland in size, which are tiny and you must count distance till millimeters. Of course, driving there in Sicily can be only by small car but buses also were, which blocked movement because made stops. And there were gas stations in this part of Sicily to sudden curiosity.

The car moved a little further but my eyes caught Don Ciccio's Villa, which made me to have a pretty trembling inside because it was being close to a great. I sensed that I was on a right place. I left a vehicle and approached to closed gates. An entrance has a lock whereas a place itself is abandoned by people keep this propriety. I could through that or more shorter nearby tall doors to climb for come inside because I saw photos that there were people who did it but I didn’t enter on territory. I watched on a trail headed to an incredible-designed manor where at it’s entrance mother of Vito Andolini threatened to kill Don Ciccio and screamed to his child that he run and there an American mafia don will revenge many years later. Some extraneous elements and yellowed surrounding didn’t violate what I see in a film. I looked around and nothing was beautiful outside of what was a camera took. It makes to feel a genius of Gordon Willis. I didn’t want to take my eyes away. I watched on that view as on a masterpiece painting.

A next stop was at Castello degli schiavi, which was Don Tomassino Villa. That place used for filming of The Godfather, The Godfather Part II and another part of The Godfather. I read on you must contact with an owner on come to there inside but I didn’t detect it. Hotel manager’s wife informed on a day of opening for public. Unfortunately, tbe entrances were closed and tall walls of buildings didn’t let to see that yard in which Michael lost Apollonia. I saw a shorter stone fence on the left to where I came and made jump for catch an edge. I raise myself but I didn’t see a needful from that point. I moved further where a next propriety was but stone walls were there too. I could see tops of building and places which guards secured. If I will return to Sicily, it will with visiting of territory of Castello degli schiavi. Nonetheless, I have a little happiness with seeing a piece of what presented as Don Tomassino Villa.

More than once, you come to minding how flickmakers could discover these mesmerizing locations, which are hardly covered in widespread inexpressiveness. And I imagined on how whole filming crew moved through these little roads and hairpin climbing with which you understand that you ready on everything for art. Because movement up to the last had turns, which were rougher in comparison with that I had in one Scotland region. The vehicle drove me to Forza D'Agro. I assumed that buses don’t go there but I will see one entering the city when I will come back to a transport.

I said to park at beginning because I didn’t want to see on searching for place on probably busied in cars streets.

A first location was Cattedrale Maria SS. Annunziata e Assunta, which appears when young Vito escapes and where Michael says on no men in a town. I walked inside of XIV century building which was empty in humans. A church fatigue didn’t arise but it wasn’t attractive in design had update not so many years ago.

I didn’t know exact where Vito’s house is. I saw alike streets, which moved up, as it is in movies. I assumed on one door, because a place had identity with surrounding, but I wasn’t correct by finding another one where was hanging a picture from a some part of The Godfather. I knew it was that door because I had an inner awe again. I stayed at a significant sight.

Everywhere changed to abominable since filming by doors, windows, recoloring of walls and foremost the boulevards were desecrated by put stones, which indicated how people should walk. A location lost time but not spirit.

Savoca was a second town on a top. Two roads were to it. One had hairpin less harsh that to Forza D’Argo while a second had little distances between turns and high-degree uplifts. I said to move to the latter, because I had a bet it will a right variant from a point to approaching to locations. It became a true climbing on a mount with the car (on which I didn’t see anybody else). Of course, I loved that experience.

I passed a chargeable parking zone, which was in multitude of automobiles, while there could find a free space. Certainly, I could stop there and pay or don’t do that but I wanted to see further. I moved and entered into a tourist zone by getting many of respective people in a view while it was a place for four-wheel machines. I saw parked Audi on the left and said to stay behind of it. Pay for parking and roads aren’t serious things for me but I didn’t resist if do it somewhere nearby. Perhaps, I sensed myself as Sicilian to that time. When you in Rome, you know. I will see soon that I moved from a road, which has Bar Vitelli on the right. Visit of it was for the last.

I read that it is the most visiting location in Sicilian part of The Godfather. You experience this in being in a cluster of people there who make this place into Little America by hearing only native English speech. Coppola created a great opportunity for business in Savoca. A few souvenir shops, which sell items with respective images for big prices while everything made in Han Empire (though I saw cups manufactured in Italy as a sticker claims but should I believe here?).

I headed to Chiesa di San Nicolo, which road changed since putting of unnatural bricks for barriers. I walked to a place where Michael Corleone and Apollonia had wedding and did it through roads on which they and all guests moved. You can make this short distance by taking ride on a little carriage from Bar Vitelli. And I saw once these lazy people who keep this business alive (furthermore, these men showed banality by performing a worst ever heard version of Love Theme). How can you get a true experience of a film by that?

I was at an entrance where I did reconstruction of a scene by doing kneeling. Of course, I did checking around before on no priest and anybody who wants to marry me. Perhaps, a man behind that door, who was selling tickets, wasn’t confused by my act.

I wouldn’t go inside due to no scenes were there again but I was there. I wouldn’t pay two euros by having unchangeable reasons while I passed free due to no coins. A church’s interior was ordinary. However, I revealed on presence of film’s props in a cloth of a man who made wedding, pillows on which characters put knees and, probably, a book which priest held. All that was nearby of TV set which broadcasted all scenes made in Savoca. I asked a ticket salesman on legitimacy of requisite and he confirmed their authenticity by listing them and pointing on where characters had ceremony though he saw me on that place before that.

Bar Vitelli is a place where Michael with two bodyguards stopped and made a talk with a venue’s owner about beautiful women in Sicily and recognized by accident that Vitelli is father of a lady in which Corleone fell in love. There Al Pacino’s hero offered a marriage. A bar was opened in 1963 and it hadn’t name until Coppola decided to make a filming there. It took a title Bar Vitelli after that. I read before and it was logical that prices are higher than standard. It was more than right that owners raised numbers and installed in requirements that you can sit at same corner, which is “only for pictures”, as I recognized from a head waiter (and, maybe, even more) there when I wanted to take a place there, and visit inside if you make an order from menu because not many men want to do so. Don’t expect that I will say that be there was an offer you shouldn’t refuse. However, I disguised myself as a Sicilian by ordering cannolo. It cost 8,50 euros. I took that with a black tea for 8 euros. A waitress had difficulties with my English pronunciation and absence of familiarity with some words when I talked on “classic cannolo”, a presence of “orange zest” and she didn’t know about “loose or in bags tea”. I received the latter with the last though I had a top-notch service and a large size cannolo, which was covered in almonds. Heroes in an original book says had a homemade wine with inclusion of lemons and oranges (a movie simplified to just calling this drink). I was minding to order this but when I saw an American with a standard glass of red one, it wouldn’t recreate that aesthetics where characters took in from the medium-size round volumes. I had delight to having cannolo and tea in that venue. A crust of Sicilian dessert is true while exposing ricotta cheese makes a unique palatable taste but that is not an authentic cannolo.

Nothing for point to come inside of Bar Vitelli. However, I would move to there anyway due to pay for order, which didn’t include “coperto” to fortunate. The venue wants to earn more by offering The Godfather items as that 0,2 liters of grappa with Don Vito Corleone. Owners created a magnificent ambience. You listen music of thirties and interior of bar has resemblance from these decades. I entered in one room, which had a gramophone on a table and not so was in a corner was a chair on which was a paper informed that Al Pacino was there and hint that you shouldn’t touch it. A room was designed that a sitting place was installed unnoticeable for bar’s staff. I’m not so sure it was the chair on which Al was sitting.

I walked outside and did movement nearby in slightly changed square where Michael and Apollonia danced. Al Pacino in his autobiography confessed that he didn’t know how to dance, how to drive a car and no wielding of Italian language. Coppola surprised in everything that. If a camera could imagine an automobile riding while an actor did something imitating in dancing.

I saw how a shorthaired black cat, who gave birth a not long period ago, walked and jumped on ledge for take a nap on it’s tile. She wasn’t going to do that yet when I approached to her. A beautiful wasn’t against of my touch. Then I sat in the car and it headed down through an alternative road which was in front of me.

I hadn’t same senses in Savoca as they were at that what was Don Ciccio’s Villa and Forza D’Agro because, pardon me a neologism, but touristization takes a spirit away. But, no doubt, I was excited to see these two locations. The Godfather films places made my visit of Sicily worth and reasonable.

Well, isn’t it that the first stage was for searching of “carpet” hotel while the second became for getting a good cannolo? If something with food, I recognized in the following day that I don’t want farsu magru because I don’t think I will get a delicious taste from a roulette mess whereas I discovered a piece of cassata, which has too much of icing sugar but a thing’s combination makes a palatable dessert though a negative element doesn’t make it to be wishful for have it one more time.

One destination and two places in Sicily remain in the list but I don’t have an anticipation to with them after my perception of the island’s landscapes and believing I will grabbed by these places. I began to think on cancellation. However, I didn’t want to just write novella in these four days.