Page 331 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

plus bike rental and local bike tours. To reach Via Tagliamento, turn left off Via

Vittorio Véneto from the station. Doubles €80

Da Antonio Via Pietro Nenni 8 095 799 2534. Best place in town for typical local
dishes and pizzas (€6–10); the house antipasto is really good, too. The restaurant is a
few hundred metres from Piazza Loreto – walk down the Linguaglossa road, past the
petrol stations, and it’s up a side road on the right. Tues–Sun lunch & dinner.

San Giorgio e Il Drago Piazza San Giorgio 28 095 923 972. Cosy trattoria housed
in a nineteenth-century wine cellar, run by Samantha and Daniele Anzalone with food
cooked by their two mothers. In spring, there’s the chance to eat home-made pasta
with wild asparagus; in autumn, look out for dishes using porcini mushrooms collected
from the woods of Etna; and in winter sausage fried with wild greens. Expect to pay
around €30 per head for a full meal. Mon & Wed–Sun dinner only.

Castello Nelson
Daily 9am–1pm & 2.30–5pm, summer until 7pm • €3, gardens only €1.50

About 12km west of Randazzo, just off the SS120, lies the estate given to Lord Nelson
as part of his dukedom, granted by King Ferdinand in gratitude for British help in

repressing the Neapolitan revolution of 1799, which had forced the Bourbon court to
flee to Palermo. Although Nelson never got round to visiting his Sicilian property, his
family, the Bridports, only relinquished control in 1978. Surrounded by a wooded
estate, it’s now owned by the Comune, but is still known (and signposted) as the
Castello Nelson. Its original name was Maniace, after the convent founded here in
1174 on the site of a victory over the Arabs by George Maniakes. The 1693
earthquake destroyed much of this building, but as you pass through the walls you’ll

see the restored thirteenth-century chapel with its chunky lava columns and
Byzantinesque icon, the so-called Madonna di Maniace. As for the house itself, were
it not for the beautiful tiled floors, restored to match the original pattern in yellow,
rose and blue, it could easily be mistaken for an English country residence. Its style
and furnishings – wallpaper, maritime paintings – were defined by Alexander Hood,

one of the Bridports, who lived here for sixty years until the 1930s. The same
Englishness is evident in the well-tended garden, planted with box hedges, magnolias
and palm trees.

On the other side of the river lies the only part of the estate still owned by Nelson’s
descendants, the English cemetery. Its most celebrated occupant is the Scottish author
William Sharp (1855–1905), who wrote under the name of Fiona Macleod and was a

regular visitor here.