Busman's Holiday...

Demetra Resort - very handy for the World Heritage Site at Agrigento.  Set in a 'retired' nursery - so there are lots of trees and plants and so on.  Also two friendly dogs, some horses and a goat.  Feels like an old villa - not at all like a hotel. A very civilised stay - but the manager tells me that business (and prices) are well down since the 2008 financial crisis.

View from from the hotel access road.

The central south coast appears to be part petro-chem refinery and part industrial agriculture - not very nice indeed - but I was warned.

Further east - and the greenhouses become derelict

along with failed development (on the otherside of the road was an abandoned C19th villa

Now this is more like it - Modica

Glad I parked out of town and walked - the old centre seems to have been abandoned to old ladies and cats - you can buy or rent a house here very cheaply indeed.

Killing time outside the big church until the shops and attractions re-opened after lunch - and along came the ice cream man

Very nice indeed

What is up this street - I recognise that smell...

Its coming through this wall

..and yes it is a proper chocolate factory (Antica Dolceria Bonajuto) - not just somewhere that melts and moulds - but chocolate from liquor, cocoa butter and sugar

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The quintri-lingual Albanian lady spotted I was looking at a cutting from "The FT" - I mentioned I had come to Modica on a busman's holiday - and I was also a chocolate maker.  This led to an hour of intense conversation with the factory owner - comparing experiences from Sao Tome (him) and Ghana (me) and talking technicalities about conching, emulsifiers and sourcing of beans.

I'm trying to get a shot of the wee cocoa moth - a friend from ancient history

The family have been making chocolate for generations - starting as itinerant chocolatiers travelling from big house to big house making custom chocolates for duke, counts and their families.  The chocolate is very coarse in texture - a surprise - but very nice - closest to the artisanal chocolate I found in Astorga - not surprising as it was the Spanish who brought the technology to Sicily.


The Financial Times says:

"Off the Corso Umberto was a tiny, elegant chocolate shop, the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, which I entered on an impulse. Instantly the shop’s owner and manager, Pierpaolo Ruta, came bounding downstairs to regale me with his philosophy of chocolate, illustrated by tidbits.

Even as a child Ruta wished to become a chocolate-maker: “It was the way my grandfather smelled when he came home from work.”"...read the rest of the article and all about Modica here


No one comments on how I smell after a hard days work in the factory.  I bought a LOT of chocolate in the shop - but the most interesting was the hot pasty filled with cocoa and meat.

What a place to live - but most tourists visit Ragusa and miss out Modica - a shame

View from the kitchen at Casa Modicarte!

The view from the carpark

Here is what I wrote for Booking.Com

"The best "view from kitchen window" ever - the hotel is perched on the side of a valley on the edge of farmland - all limestone walls and olive trees with Modica town lit up on the southern horizon. All home made food - own olive oil, own wine, own chocolate (yes!), cakes, bread and so on. Cooking is a joint family effort - if you stay here I recommend that you also eat here! There is a well behaved and friendly dog and at least one cat (also friendly). My room was in good condition - decoration and fittings "out of Habitat via IKEA" Good English is spoken by the proprietor."

My "starter"

Home made wine and olives - from the fields around the hotel

The hotel is a "new build" - part art studio, part cookery school and with just 5 guest rooms - but it is close to the old family farm building

First course - lots of veggies - healthy

I think this was beef - a real surprise - in the UK Italian food seems to express only a limited repertoire = but this is Sicily - the cross roads of culture

And finally