SAVOCA

Not far from Forza D’Agro’ and perched on another rocky hill is the town of Savoca.  It is a quiet town,  which many residents have left to live on the coast.  As one walks along the streets of this town, the majority of people are tourists.  In talking to the locals, it is indeed confirmed that many locals have moved away. One of the town attractions is the Cappuccini convent where the cript contains about thirty mummies and another is Bar Vitelli.

Hollywood put this little town on the map in the seventies when Francis Ford coppola chose this location for his movie, The Godfather.  In fact, the Bar Vitelli was the setting of scenes of the movie and inside it today one can see many pictures that attest to that.  Interestingly enough, the locals told me that Bar Vitelli was just an abandoned building when Coppola visited Savoca.  He chose to make it into Bar Vitelli to shoot scenes of his movie and today Bar Vitelli is a tourist attraction.  It serves only Granita di Limone (Lemon Ice) and allows tourists to just sit and remember the movie scenes shot there.  One can find all the Italian cafe’s have to offer at the Bar across from it on the square overlooking the gorges below.

Bar Vitelli

Inside Bar Vitelli many pictures from the movie, The Godfather, are displayed.

A tribute to F.F. coppola in the square across from Bar Vitelli

View from the square of one of  the roads to the coast

Driving down to the coast on a very narrow back road, at the bottom of the hills, I was quite surprised when I ran into army tanks, on a routine training.