My name's Julian McDonnell
and this week I'm going to be eating lots of food
drinking lots of wine
and doing lots of little trips on mopeds
yes, I'm in Italy
It's a hard life sometimes
Ah, Julian
Ah, there you are
My friend, Massimo, is always going on about how amazing it is in Sicily
So we've finally decided to come out here and check it out for ourselves
I'll just finish off this delightful breakfast
Now we've based ourselves in the town of Cefalu just outside Palermo
because my mate Massimo has quite a few of his rental villas here and wanted me to check out the area
What I love about Cefalu is all these wonderful, cobbled streets and
windy passages with all the authentic Sicilian laundry hanging from people's balconies, it's brilliant
and it makes you feel like you're in a Turkish bazaar or something
and it's hardly surprising actually becauseover the years
Sicily has been invaded by so many different people that they've all left their mark
The Greeks have been here, the Romans, the Turks, the Bourbons (whoever they are)
They even let the Italians take over eventually
Spectacular views of the craggy overhanging mountain and medieval fortress on top
and a cathedral which I think they're very proud of but don't take my word for it
Let's ask Angelo who actually lives here
This is the main street
and the architecture is just a main street
and then the two streets close to the cathedral are specifically designed
from the bottom of the street you can see the tower of the cathedral
It's like a sign, you know, that God is everywhere
The cathedral is the pride of Cefalu and was built in the year 1131
after Sicily had been conquered by the Normans
and is famous for its total mix of Arab and Normal and other architecture
the bottom half looks completely different from the top
But what Angelo keeps going on about is the mosaic of Jesus Pantocrator inside…
one of the most famous in all of Italy.
There is another one which is in Monreale cathedral
Close to Palermo
boo, exactly, booo
but our mosaic is much better than the other one
watching his face
he is represented as a human being
and he's very nice
comparing with the one in Monreale
The one is Monreale, it doesn't have humanity
It's more cold let's say
Unfortunately the Norman King Roger died before he could finish building the Cathedral
which is why it looks like a bit of a mish-mash
So time by time Spanish and Arabian and Byzantine and Greek....
Bloody Norman builders!
Conveniently, just down here there's a medieval wash house
and as it happens
I've got quite a smelly shirt that I wore on the journey here so I'm going to wash that
I wasn't going to say anything
This is the oldest laundry in the world
The water comes from an underground river called the Cefalino
straight from the surrounding hills and is a very cold, sweet water which runs down into the sea
just behind Paganini over there
I wouldn't recommend drinking it though
You probably think that the man here playing the Godfather on the violin is making an absolute fortune
but I feel a bit sorry for him because everyone is just throwing their money into the fountain
I wonder if he goes and picks it out afterwards
The old women in the past were washing the clothes on the stone in this particular system
This one looks like it's got a nice steady stream
I suppose what you'd do is you'd take your shirt like this
grab a handful of coins while you're at it
I suppose this is what this is for, you probably rub it onto here
I thought this was your job, Simon. What am I doing this for......I'm director!
I like my whites whiter than white even at 40 degrees!
I think it's actually more dirty than before
Not bad
oh my god
You need  a medieval tumble drier
Funny you should mention that because
actually I've got just the place to dry this which is quicker than a tumble drier
This beats the launderette down the local high street in London
I feel authentic now. Excellent.
What could be better than a refreshing cocktail
by the beach accompanied by this cheesy music
and the great thing about Cefalu is it's got one of the most beautiful beaches in Sicily
You can take a stroll along the golden sand
see the snogging couples, surfers
bronzed life guards, beautiful women
and men of a certain age proudly parading in famously tiny swimming trunks
I must say, you've got to admire their balls
Sicily is also famous for its incredible food
so we're off to pick up Nancy Jung
who is a proper food blogger and wine expert
but most importantly she has a slightly more sophisticated palate than mine
Time for the race
I don't need a helmet or anything?
No
You can hire a nice vespa for  25 euros for half a day in the old town
but it won't be as stylish as Marco's set of wheels
Make sure you've got travel insurance
The shape of Cefalu from a distance looks like a snail
Yes, it's shaped like a snail, I like that
It's a very comfortable way to get around town but
Marco's scooter is a bit more like a car really
it has the turning circle of an ocean liner
Ciao Nancy!
Look at the size of that suitcase
You can really drive like that?
I live in Istanbul at the moment
i'm a food tour guide
so basically I walk around, eat and introduce food and
I've heard about Sicilian cuisine for a long time
and I've been really looking forward to coming here and trying all the lovely food
What we want is something just to stave off the hunger until later
and the perfect thing, I've heard tell, is arancini
I'm going to the focaccia shop, the oldest one
They also have arancini there?
Yes, and they looked really good; that's why I'm going back
I have food instinct
Arancini with meat
and this one with ham and mozzarella
You can really feel the crunchiness
all the other places I've been they microwave this and they go soggy
Would you prefer that or a hamburger or a kebab?
I really like this because....well I really like rice anyway
Look, really really crispy
This is the other type you can get which is the meat. I actually like the cheese one better
but both of them are delicious
it's really good as I expected
exactly what I expected, crunchy outside
it's really nice
We've been here a couple of days and there's plenty to do in Cefalu all year round
but September is the time for the grape harvest
and our guide, friend and general all round good egg
Angelo is going to take us to the Sant'anastasia vineyard
So we get to try even more wine. Are you up for some more wine?
Are you ready for your trip to the vineyard?
So we're going to see the procedure for wine making
So, Julian, if you have an empty glass
Of course, we're going to try some
There are absolutely acres of vines. There's aren't any grapes on the vines at the moment because
they've just done the harvestbut we're goingt o head up to the winery
Immediately the smell of wine hits you as you walk in
and hardly surprising really
I know nothing about wine so any questions I'll have to leave to Nancy
I just clearly want to try some out
I wasn't listening what was he talking about?
The most important thing is that thing on top of the barrel
the glass part allows wine to escape when the temperature changes to avoid it turning into vinegar
and how many litres are there in here?
10 000 litres of wine!
That's enough
We'll take this one please
I've left my wallet at home
Look, I knew I was going to like it but if it passes the Nancy test then I can start to relax
What will your wife say?
I'm getting drunk on the smell alone
It's not wine it's grape juice
before the alcoholic fermentation before going into the barrel
It's pure grape  it's fantastic
It's really nice grapejuice
I feel like Charlie when he's being taken around the chocolate factory
there's all this stuff I shouldn't be touching in case I contaminate it
cheers
this is like your baby
He has many children!
This is a very citrusy wine.......um...
Oh, I got it right?
Total guess
This definitely gets a smiley face
Today we're going to go on a boat trip with Marco
I don't know if it's his boat
He's so stylish is Marco
He's going to come straight  around this bend
"Julian I am going today to borrow a boat"
Come on do you reckon that's him?
Surely not
It's really lovely this little spot
I can imagine it being where lovers meet
and so many of these locks must have a romantic story behind them
I think this is where they put all the chairs out at the end of Cinema Paradiso
and they project the film onto those buildings there
It really does look very atmospheric with lovely rock overhanging
it probably hasn't changed ever, this town, has it..
So where are we going?
We're going to explore the cave over there
Inside the cave there is a secret coast
and there is an awkward hole where you can get in but you can't get out
I'm pretty good at negotiating awkward holes
This is my football team
Which team?
Inter Milano
Off she goes into a secret beach
hidden
what wonders await them
It's very beautiful
This cave is called St Lucy and during the war
this woman called Lucy came running in herewith enemy soldiers chasing her
Probably English I expect
and she climbed up through that hole and made good her escape
Why is she a saint? God knows...
But it's a lovely cave
Rosario's lived here for 30 years and he's never been inside there
We're  in a very beautiful spot here
Apparently in 1989 the New York Times
declared this the 7th most beautiful corner of the world
and just as we're heading back to get changed  into our evening attire
as if by magic, the barman appears
oh, go one then!
Now you might be wondering what all the people are doing just wandering around
They're not all tourists, quite a lot of them live here
A "passagiata" we call it. Just walking
and shopping
meeting friends and chat a little bit
before going for dinner
we make a passagiata before and after
ah, can I have have two flavours?
We've been trying to find him, he disappeared down an alley way
This ridiculous. Look at the size of this
Here you can knock someone and they'll offer you a coffee maybe
a room with a view
this is somebody's front door, it's hilarious
what do you do if you have a sofa delivery?
ah, it brings us out at our house. That's handy.
So it's a nice quiet evening, what do you suggest we do ?
a typical Sicilian aperative
so we can have a drink, some cheese
local cheese and salami and a pizza
sounds good to me, how about you, Simon?
I'm very up for that
We've been here for about four or five days now as you can tell from the length of my stubble
So we've decided to come out of Cefalu and come for a day trip to Palermo
and it's immediately tangible the difference.
It's complete chaos here
I didn't quite catch that
What's the name of this Market?
Ballaro
one of the most important markets in Palermo
It's like a competition
one guy sings out and the other is trying to compete with him
This is the real traditional Palermo street food
There are two different kinds of street food
the worst part of the pork, the tongue, the nose
which are boiled
or you can have the stigiola
which are the interiors of the sheep or the cow
with onion and parsley, it's very good
very strong taste but good
Sounds horrific
you don't have to see what you eat!Just eat and enjoy
So we're going to send in our celebrity taster, Nancy, because there's no way I'm trying it
Best street food in Palermo, number 1
3rd generation
He means his father, his father's father
his father's father's father
I could go farther!
Hot but smells good
Make a picture he said. Yes, you can make a picture
but you have to eat also, otherwise what are you going to eat, the picture?
There's a big piece of fat on there, I'm not sure about this
tastes good though
Spring onion, salt
it's simple but it's nice, it's juicy
In Istanbul we have a similar thing
this is much better
After a fine repast of pigs' internal organs
we pass through the old historical centre of Palermo
and as a testament to the the well-oiled machine that is Italian efficiency
There's a house that has remained exactly the same as when it was bombed in the second world war
They haven't changed at all. Just left as they were during the second world war
Due purely to an oversight on my part
I've only had one ice cream since I've been in Sicily
so I'm going to put that right right now
Strawberry and Chocolate
once you've eaten all the bits around the outside
if by some miracle you aren't completely stuffed
you're then supposed to squash this bit inside there
and then eat it like a sandwich
It's a weird combination
especially with the brioche, for us that just seems weird
This is how you eat this
like a hamburger
Not like that!
Don't try and pretend you did that one yourself, Marco made that one for her!
Mine  looks like a hedgehog that's been run over with its guts hanging out,
because I've made such a mess of it
Right up the other end of that street that leads from the crossroads
is the Teatro Massimo
This is the biggest theatre in Italy and renowned for its amazing acoustics
it's actually one of the five biggest theatres in the world
I think it was built in the 19th century
In the final scene of the Godfather Part 3
This is where they film it; he's at the theatre. Do you know that scene?
"Just when I thought I was out...."
No no no no!
That's another part of the film.
This is the part where Al Pacino falls to his knees
and he's completely emotional because his daughter has been shot on the steps of this very opera house
Do you remember?
This is the fountain of shame over here
Piazza di Vergogna
If you look at the statues they're all a bit modest, covering themselves up
Look she's covering up her breasts.What next, eh?
Outrageous!
In 1573 the senate bough this beautiful fountain and wanted to show it off by placing it in this square
but in order to make way for it they had to knock down a few houses
which wasn't very popular with the residents
so they ended up calling it the square of shame
I notice the men aren't exactly that modest
The shame is that I don't know much about it.
Of course there's plenty more to see in Palermo but we're only on a day trip so we have to leave
About 20km outside Cefalu is Castelbuono
named after the castle which was owned by the aristocratic Famiglia di Ventimilia
Set high up in the hillsand quite isolated
you'd be forgiven for thinking you've strayed onto the set of a movie
in fact, you might recognise this square
This is the famous square where a part of Cinema Paradiso was filmed
with the fountain in the middle which is very nice
where the guy says "this is my square this is my square"(The crazy guy)
You see the old people sitting here
You can really see how the traditional life in these old towns is
old people  sitting just outside doing nothing
Just chatting, sometimes fighting sometimes playing cards
Sometimes making gossip about what's going on
They are making gossip about us perhaps.
Who are they, what are they doing here?
They are the best and real newspaper for the town
We never buy newspapers here, we just listen to them
Panettone...
In September....In general it's strange but here it's very common
There is a percentage of minced meat to make this
Minced meat? In chocolate?
This is Manna and it's a sort of resin
Yeah and bit like a meringue , a chewy meringue
Basically the main property of manna is  it's a strong laxative
Laxative!
Now he tells me!
Hmm, minced meat in the chocolate and laxatives
cheers Angelo
should be an interesting drive back to Cefalu!
I really love this time of day when the sun's just falling on the buildings
and you can see all the fishermen who have returned from the fishing trip last night
they'll be selling their fish in the street
that's a Sicilian road sweeper
Slightly different from Harringay Council's way of doing things
That guy you can hear him all throughout the streets
and over here there's this brilliant bloke who's been making fishing nets for years
His little grotto. It's so cute in here
Like an Aladdin's cave
There he is, Salvatore, as a young man
It's quite a climb up this hill but if you're feeling brave
around the other side of the big mountain and just next to the stadium
is the house of the man who the English press called "The Wickedest Man in the World"
It's really creepy actually
Wow...it's still here. No one's lived here for years
It's just all abandoned and still here
Aleister Crowley was born in 1875 and was an occultist, poet and general weirdo
who founded a religion called Thelema
and considered himself to be the prophet who would lead the human race into the aeon of Horus
Whatever that is
in the 20th Century
a bit like like Scientology, in fact I think L. Ron. Hubbard was inspired by him
He was certainly his friend anyway
and he is said to have inspired Aldous Huxley, David Bowie, The Beatles,
and honestly thought himself to be the "Beast 666"
as prophecised by John the Divine in the book of Revelation
an occultist, he was a painter, a mountaineer and I think he was a double agent  as well in the war
Let's go through the keyhole with Joolzy
How do you get in?
Do you want to clamber down there, I reckon that's the way in.
Looks safe enough
He was just a weird kind of deviant
In his lifetime he became a notorious bi-sexual, drug experimenter and satanist
and people would come to his house and do all sorts of weird sex experiments and stuff like that
until Moussolini eventually had him expelled from Italy
The Temple of Thelema
Doesn't look like much of a temple to me
Who knows, maybe there's someone in there now
performing some ritualistic sex (bestiality)
It is actually really dangerous to go in, I'm kind of reluctant
There we go...he's in....Ok
Be careful Julian
Julian
Oh, he's a fool!
It's really freaky in here
It's hard to believe  he used to live here with his weird followers until 1923 when the Italians had enough of him
Kind of feels like his weird followers still come in here
now I must point out seriously at this opint that we shouldn't be in here
it's actually forbidden to enter this site
I'm already  far too weirded out in here and it's horrible.
It smells
It feels a bit dangerous
Yeah they've clearly closed it off for a reason in there
Simon, don't knock anything with that big rucksack.
You might have the whole thing come down on you
This is a freaky place
I mean they wore robes, performed rituals.
He offered what they call a "libertine" education for the children of his followers
and allowed them to play all day and witness acts of sex magic
He also said "I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening."
What a nutter!
Yes, sounds like a nice guy
After that surreal experience
it's finally time to climb La Rocca
The imposing mountain that's been taunting me ever since I arrived
Make sure you take good footwear though, this is quite a long hike
and you'll definitely need some water
unless you are a camel
which I'm not, although Simon does give me the hump sometimes
Looks easy enough
No problem
Looks like you're off to get married with that music in the background
Where's the bride?
Look at these amateurs! They've brought flip flops to climb La Rocca!
Who's idea was this?
After the fall of the Roman empire the people from Cefalu moved up the mountain
For better protection against pirates like the Vandals and the Saracens
and around the 8th century they started to build fortifications
I don't even know why they put the fortifications in,
there's no need, you'd be knackered after climbing all that!
You have to be pretty careful though
That is a death fall
No Fear
She has no fear
After a steep climb we finally reach the Temple of Diana
a megalithic structure which we don't know much about
but it's really old, honest!
Before the Greeks arrived it was apparently used for the ancient pagan worship of water
Greek lintel and columns here, aren't they
This wasn't put in by O'Reilly's builders
this is old this is from the 5th century BC
These bits look like they've been added a bit later
Sicily's been invaded by so many people it's hard to keep track of who built what
speaking of worshipping water
I want to be down there in the sea
You look quite different from the Julian I met this morning having a coffee and croissant!
Well at least I made it to the summit before the end of the trip
and despite being ready to flop into bed
Angelo has arranged one last farewell feast for us at one of their villas
with one of their private chefs
so we're going to to have the experience of trying the home cooking
it's a nice experience that we organise often
Today I will cook a traditional Sicilian recipe
and I put a little bit of white wine , olive oil
Very fresh fish, super fresh
I can never get mine to look like that
How do you do it?
You need to find the right tomatoes
and then you need to cook very slow
and it takes time, some say about 2 hours
The service we're offering is great food experience to people coming on holiday
I think this kind of sharing the passion for food is fantastic
Pasta alla Norma! With aubergine.
I want to stop filming now and just east this
Everyone seems to be having a pretty good time
I'm sad to be leaving Cefalu
and I can see why so many people wanted to invade
but I'm sure I'll be back again soon
Arrivederci folks!
Thanks for watching!
