Made it to PIazza Repubblica and took the 11 bus to the bus station. They did not sell tickets on board and the driver let me on so I kinda got a free ride? I still feel a bit guilty. Naturally I was at the bus terminal way early, since there was no bus until 10:30, but the ride was short and beautiful between the two hilltop cities and I was there by 11.
Modica is split into two towns, a lower and upper. The lower town has one street running through it where most of the important stuff is. And by important, I mean chocolate shops, because that is what Modena is most famous for - an old chocolate recipe based on the Mayan method. In other words, the only ingredients in the basic chocolate are chocolate and sugar. So it is not smooth. But it sure is delicious. And then they add all kinds of flavors to it. I wandered around town into a couple churches. The Duomo is rather lovely. I even walked - I mean hiked - up to the upper town to see another church. Back down by the Duomo, there is a cave church with frescoes from the 1200s. Wild.
Then I had lunch at a place called Osteria dei Sapori Perduti - or forgotten flavors. The menu was in Sicilian dialect I believe and it was all old recipes. I had some local bread and a traditional pasta with fava beans. There was a big American tour group in there. Speaking of tour groups I cannot believe I am almost a third through my trip (WHAT?) and I have not whined about tour groups yet. I hate them. That is all. Oh, and it started to rain.
After lunch I had incredible gelato at award-winning Amado - local chocolate and local toasted almond. I tried to go into the Chocolate Museum, but everything lied and it was closed for the afternoon. They said to come back at 3. What does one do in a town famous for chocolate when one has time to waste, you ask? Why, naturally, one samples, and buys, chocolate from basically every shop on the street. I lost count of how much money I spent on chocolate, literally. And it continued to rain. A little after 3pm I went back to the chocolate museum and it was still closed. Come back at 4, they said. So I went into the little archaological museum instead. I like old stuff as much as anyone but do people really spend their time enjoying looking at unidentifiable fragments of pots and plates?
It was still raining so I bought an umbrella. I went back to the chocolate museum at about 4 and I could not figure out what was going so I gave up. And bought more chocolate. I went back to the bus terminal and got a lemon granita and then caught the 5pm bus back to Ragusa. Then I got the 11 bus back to the base of the hill where the b&b is and finally washed my clothes.
Set out arounnd 7:15 to wander and get dinner and it had cooled off massively after the rain stopped! Yesterday on the train here I sat across from an American girl and her husband and this evening I saw them wandering around Ragusa and we said hello. It always blows my mind what a small world it really is. The sunset over the Duomo was stunning. I wandered around a bit and decided to eat at I Banchi, owned by a chef who also has a two Michelin star restaurant in town. I had a fantastic meal: a glass of local Moscato, local chicken in a marsala sauce with lemon, homemade pasta with broccoli and ricotta, and a great bread basket with local olive oil. They also gave me an amuse bouche that was a "caprese salad" but it was actually some tomatoes and pesto topped with a buffalo mozzarella foam and it was like nothing I have ever had. It is rather rare for a restaurant in Italy to serve oil with the bread (here, the bread is to mop up the pasta sauce) but the oil was great. A little pricey at over 35 euros but worth it.
Too full and too cold to get more gelato so I came back to the b&b to sort out laundry and watch some TV. 22,539 steps and about 9 miles today. For some reason, the internet is uploading slowly tonight, so I will post the link to the pictures from today tomorrow morning once they finish.
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