Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes Read Free Book Online

“Let's take taxis. Everywhere. This is more like the running of the bulls than driving.” We grab our bag, lock the Fiat, and don't look at the car again until we check out.
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    Because we have ended up with “the most beautiful room in Palermo,” according to the manager, I am ready to fill the tub with bubbles, open the minibar for cold water, and recuperate. When the weather turned on us in Tuscany, we decided to follow spring south. The delicious days of early March turned stormy and freezing rain hit the windows. Primo managed to stabilize our sliding hillside wall, and now has moved his men to an indoor job in town until the ground dries. We were toasting in front of the fire when Ed said, “I bet it's already warm in Sicily. Wouldn't it be fun just to take off—go tomorrow?”
    I looked up from my book. “Tomorrow?”
    â€œIt's close, really. Drive to Florence, quick flight—we'll be there in three hours total, door-to-door. It's no more than going to Seattle from San Francisco.”
    â€œI've never been to Seattle.”
    â€œThat's beside the point. We'll go to Seattle. But the forecast here is for rain all week. Look at the sun all over Sicily.” He showed me the weather report in the newspaper, with gray slants covering central Italy and yellow smiley faces dotting Sicily.
    â€œBut I have Fear of Palermo. What if we get caught in Mafia crossfire at a funeral and end up on the evening news?”
    â€œWe won't be going to any funerals. We don't even know anyone in Sicily. The Mafia is not interested in us.”
    â€œWell,” I paused for about fifteen seconds, “let's pack.”
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    A day later, this corner room has four sets of immense doors opening onto a balcony. Balmy air, palms, and blue, blue, blue water. The twenty-foot ceilings match the grand scale of the Napoleonic furniture. Tile floors, a big sleigh bed—a fabulous room, totally unlike the first one we were shown in another wing of the building. That one was depressingly dark with a carpet I did not want my feet to touch. The bellman opened the shutters to a view of a wall. “No palms,” I said.
    â€œHere there is no palm,” he agreed.
    I loathe complaining and Ed hates it more than I, but after an hour we went downstairs and I asked for the manager. “The room we have is not beautiful. In such a lovely hotel, I expected something more. . . . Is there another available? We'd like to see the palm trees.”
    He looked up our room number and grimaced. “Come with me,” he said. Then he took us miles down marble corridors and came to this one. He flung back the draperies, pushed open the doors, and light off the water bounced into the room.
“Ecco, signori, Palermo!”
He showed us an octagonal sitting room with gilt ballroom chairs, as if we should have a chamber music quartet playing while we slept.
    â€œNow I'm happy,” I told him.
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    The taxi arrives quickly and we launch into the bumper-car traffic. Yes, it's always like this, the driver tells us. No, there aren't many accidents. Why? He shrugs, everybody is used to it. We sit back, and he's right, we begin to feel the double-time rhythm of driving here. Drivers look alert, as though engaging in a contact sport. He drops us in the center near an esplanade closed to traffic. Out of the street's chaos, we're greeted by the scent of flowers. Vendors are selling freesias in all the Easter colors, purple, yellow, and white. Instead of the puny bouquets I buy at home, these are sold in armfuls, wrapped in a ruff of brazen pink foil and trailing ribbons.
    Not wanting to take time for lunch, we sample
sfincione,
pizza with big bread crumbs on top, then keep going—palms, outdoor tables filled with people, small shops of luxurious bags and shoes, waiters with trays aloft carrying pastries and espresso.
    Pastries! Every
pasticceria
displays an astonishing variety. We're used to drier Tuscan