Non Olet!

If I'm correct it was the Roman Emperor Vespasianus who said Non olet (It doesn't stink), referring to the profit he was making from the taxation of public toilets (in Italian the expression vespasiano means a pay-toilet, but even most Italians don't know it).
I had nothing to do with public toilets (and even less with money, too bad), but it was what I was thinking during this walk. I went again to Noto Antica and this time I descended into the gorge on the southwest side. What about the smell? Well, I was happy that there was no smell since I visited the ancient tanneries of the city. After 400 years there really was no smell and I wasn't curious at all how it smelled when the tanneries were active. There's another history that came to mind, that of William the Bastard. Easy to check on the web, but I'm writing this offline and when I'm online I'm very limited so I won't check and if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. If I'm right my memory still works. William's mother was supposedly the daughter of a tanner and during the siege of don't-know-which-city the brave (and foolish) citizens hung raw skins on the city walls and started making fun of William, shouting Work for the tanner! When they were defeated William ordered every man to be dismembered (literally: chopped legs and arms) and thrown from the same walls where the skins were hanging.Moral: never mock a Bastard.
The gorge with the tanneries.


Most of the path was carved in bedrock.

And the tanneries are in man made caves.

Even without the interesting tanneries the walk was worth a bit of sweat as you can see from this pictures.

And it's another festivity for a cannibalistic religion which, most of all, loves sacrifices. Well, instead of some agnus dei I opted for some corn and greens - polenta and wild herbs. No, I'm not saying this as some go-vegan commercial, I actually wanted to offer a bloody sacrifice myself after seeing that crap Berlusconi making a big fuss about his "adoption" of 5 lambs to save them from slaughter. Hell, fuck I know the lambs have nothing to do with it, it was just an instinctive reaction to anything politicians do or say.
You still believe in democracy, religious freedom and all the other crap that comes with it? I pity you, but at the same time I honestly envy you.

A Visit to Noto Antica

Yesterday, finally, I took the time for a walk to the ruins of the ancient city of Noto, now a sort of archaeological park - sort of because the place is left to itself, crisscrossed with motocross trails, church ruins used to shelter sheep during bad weather and who knows what more that I didn't notice.
It took me one hour, all uphill, to reach the eastern city limits with a nice view of the Ionian sea. And then... piles of rocks. I like piles of rocks. I mean real piles, not neatly ordered like in the China wall or the pyramids or some huge fucking cathedral. You know, the spots where hordes of so called humans start to go "oh" and "ah" and "superb" and "magnificent"... usually there I can just think how many had to die and how many died of starvation just that some jerk is now "oh-ed" and "ah-ed" by idiots. The piles I like make me smile, thinking something nasty. Like they built something like twenty churches and monasteries to the glory of some supreme being, who in return, took a few seconds of his precious time and shook a bit the ground. And turned everything into piles of rocks. And shed some more blood, but that's the usual way that supreme beings are well known for.

It was quite a huge place for the time. I climbed the tower of the Palazzo Reale near the main - west - gate and took this picture, the arrow is pointing at the monastery on the cliff on the eastern side. All this bush was the Noto Antica.

Part of the building stones was moved 7 kilometers away, to where the current Noto is, to build some more cathedrals and churches. Some more was looted in the past decades to build country houses and villas in the surrounding areas. And yet so many interesting stuff still lies there around.