“… those who get to this place from the Sicilian heartland find it suddenly at their feet, cheerful with piled roofs, magpies, and chiming bells; whereas those who get here from the nearby waterfront find it nestled within the mountainside, with ten thousands black windows, among the wavy strands of smoke and the occasional glare of a glass, opened or closed suddenly against the sun.”
Elio Vittorini - Le città del mondo (Cities of the world, untranslated)
We get to Scicli from the interior, walking on country roads that enclose fields of olive, carob and almond trees. A farmer comes to talk to us and ends up calling us “an impossible encounter”: a couple from the north, walking around Sicily.
Rows of hills lead the rivers seaward and we go along with them. Just before the first buildings we hand-pick sweet oranges that we eat en route.
We enter the town with sweating backs and swaying backpacks. First thing we notice is a cluster of houses, roofs, and churches that have the same colour of the underlying rocks.
It’s a gorgeous town, carved into the mountainside, established at the confluence of three streams not far from the sea. We climbed up to San Matteo church and enjoyed a wide view of all the city area till the waterfront.
Discovering Chiafura.
What’s this district perched above the modern town, with streets and caves covered by vegetation?
One may think that it’s a Bronze Age necropolis or a medieval quarter, uninhabited for centuries.
And yet people lived here until the mid XX century, when a group of prominent Italian intellectuals —Carlo Levi and Pier Paolo Pasolini were among them— came to visit Chiafura quarter to witness the poor conditions of its inhabitants. They were living in tight and dirty spaces, often next to other animals, in a way that wasn’t so different from that of their byzantine ancestors.
People were removed because of hygiene and safety and now the quarter’s surrounded by walls. The gate at the base is locked most of the times. However, if you want to peek inside we have a tip for you: just go up to the San Matteo church, continue along the dirt path until the castle ruins and then walk down the path that crosses Chiafura.
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