Montalbano tour

This was one of the main reasons I came to Sicily. I'm a Montalbano enthusiast. I love the characters, the plots, the humour, and the scenery. I have watched all the episodes of the TV films and read most of the novels in translation.

Spoiler warning: If you have not watched the final episodes or read the final books of the series, you might want to not read too far, as I will reveal some of the details.

This is a bust of the author Andrea Camilleri, installed at Punta Secca, the filming location for the fictional Marinella beach in the fictional Vigata. The locations are to the east of the locations Camilleri used as the basis, Porto Empedocle and Agrigento. He died in 2019 and the TV series and English book translations were completed after that.

The Montalbano house is actually a B&B and can be rented. What a windfall for the owners to be able to charge a premium due to the publicity. A long-standing question of mine was answered. In the films sometimes Montalbano goes upstairs and sometimes downstairs. I thought there were 2 levels. There are actually 3. The bedroom(s) are upstairs. I'm not sure what's downstairs.

Locally, names from the film are used. I was amused to see that a parking lot nearby is named after Vigata. On the way we passed a turn-off for Donnafugata Castle which was cast as the home of Don Balduccio Sinagra, the mafioso boss. We did not visit because there is an entrance fee. Also I realised from looking at the photos on Wikipedia that the stone labyrinth there features in the episode Excursion to Tindari.

The front of the Montalbano house.

While we are on names, while on the bus from Agrigento I saw business names like Fazio and Cuffaro. Obviously Camilleri used Sicilian family names for his characters.

What amazed me is how compact the locations are in real life. It must be the lenses they use that make the locations appear spacious.

The beach where Montalbano goes for his swim. Again in the films it looks broader and longer than it is in real life.

I had spotted a sign reading Punta Braccetto. That name was actually used in the episode Nest of Vipers, where the retired doctor had a shack. It's about 5 km away by shore.

The sea features a lot in the films. Late episodes and the Young Montalbano series were accompanied by the singer Olivia Sellerio. She is the daughter of Camilleri's first publisher in Sicily.

Another view of the side of the house. The balcony is where Montalbano takes his breakfast coffee and after dinner drinks, at times with guests.

Shots of Montalbano swimming in the sea are often used. I suspect that they took several sequences of him swimming at the beginning of the series and reused them as needed. After all you can't see that Luca Zingaretti is not as young as in the aerial shots.

The series lasted so long, from 1999 to 2021 that several associated people died, including the director Alberto Sironi (Luca Zingaretti directed the final episodes), the actor playing Dr. Pasquano, Marcello Perracchio, and of course the author, Andrea Camilleri. There was even a spin-off prequel series, Young Montalbano.

Around the corner from the house is a seaside plaza.

Actors have also changed during the series. Most notable were those playing Livia, Montalbano's girlfriend who lives in Genoa, Katharina Böhm, Lina Perned, and Sonia Bergamasco. The first two are Swiss and Swedish respectively and their voices were dubbed, but the last is an Italian actor.

Another character played by more than one actor is Adelina, Montalbano's housekeeper.

At the far end of the plaza, you will see this familiar lighthouse. As far as I know the lighthouse doesn't figure in any plot, it just appears at the other end of the street leading to the house.

The films fairly faithfully follow the novels they are based on, usually with minor side plots discarded. In some cases the episode is not based on a novel but on a short story or potpourris of.

Camilleri used his novels to criticise Italian politics and society and this is also part of the films. Even history intrudes. In the last episode of the Young Montalbano series, he's about to marry Livia and move to Genoa, when the news of the assassination of judge Falcone is broadcast. Livia tells Montalbano that he should stay in Vigata where he's needed.

The blue building in the distance is the restaurant Enzo a Mare, riding on the coattails of the owner of Montalbano's favourite restaurant. In the series he started out eating at Calogero's until it shut down, in the episode Equal Time.

In the books he usually takes a long walk along a jetty to digest a heavy lunch (he's a picky and voracious eater), and think. He often teases a crab that lives in the rocks. This isn't shown in films as it would be a waste of screen time. In fact the films propel the stories vigorously; hardly any scenes are redundant.

The lighthouse has a cafe with tables where your stereotypical old men could gather and pass the time.

On the other side of the parking for the house is a cafe where we were told we could get a coffee or use the toilets before we were herded back to our transport vehicles for the next location.

About 45 minutes later, we arrived in the town of Scicli, whose town hall was the location of the police station in the series.

The piazza in front of the station is actually not as wide as it seems in the films. Naturally the tables and planters are not there in the films.

The building that the front of the station faces. In the films, as in real life, there is a cafe there.

At the ticket desk magnets (calamite) are sold, and proceeds from that and the ticket sales support social projects in Scicli. Some well-known phrases appear, such as di pirsona pirsonalmente (personally in person) a favourite of Catarella, the switchboard operator.

Cabbasisi appears in a phrase in the books that means don't bother us. You can follow the link for a full explanation (in Italian, use a translator).

The sign that designates this as the fictional Vigata police station.

According to the site guide, these offices are not actually in use, the mayor has a modern office elsewhere. It's possible that the town hall is used on ceremonial occasions, but otherwise earns its keep from visitors interested in Montalbano filming locations.

The switchboard room, Catarella's lair.

The very familiar reception which the characters walk through to Montalbano's office at the end.

Deputy Mimi Augello's office door is supposed to be on the left, but there is no office behind the door, just a closet.

Montalbano's desk.

The other desk where often Fazio sits taking notes during interviews conducted by Montalbano.

A cardboard silhouette of Camilleri is smoking a cigarette.

The view from the side of Montalbano's desk. There were quite a few visitors from tour groups so we had to take turns taking pictures.

Moving on we went upstairs to the room that featured as the office of the commissioner, Montalbano's boss, who had the double-barrelled name Bonetti-Alderighi. The questura (police headquarters) is in the fictional city of Montelusa. The actor playing the commissioner died before the series ended.

A frontal view of the desk. Obviously not in use.

The elaborate ceiling and top of the tapestry.

The chairs on the other side of the room where the commissioner sometimes had one-on-one conversations with Montalbano.

A view of the piazza from the balcony.

Out on the piazza again, in the films the police cars arrive and depart in this direction.

Our tour guide spent a few minutes taking pictures for the tour members posing in front of the "station", using their phones.

Next we headed for the town of Modica. The highway stretching across the valley is SS194. A tall highway spanning a valley appears in the opening titles and is very impressive.

Up on the hill overlooking the town is the Duomo di San Giorgio. It served as the location for funerals in a few of the episodes. Again it looks more spacious in the films.

A view with the tower.

It's fairly attractive inside but the interior isn't used in the films as far as I know.

Of course Montalbano never marries Livia, superheroes may have girl/boyfriends but may not wed. But many fans expressed disappointment that they broke up in the last episode The Catalanotti Method, and he pairs up with Antonia, leaving the future open. But I've read the book and the film follows it faithfully. For some reason the English language title is The Sicilian Method.

The book that followed, The Cook of the Halcyon, is an outlier, unlikely to be made into a film because it was originally written as a film script that never got used in which Montalbano and Fazio undergo plastic surgery so no point using the existing actors.

At the end of the episode The Artist's Touch, Montalbano drives slowly past the cathedral while chatting with Anna who is on foot and turns the corner. This is that corner.

The road in front of the cathedral did duty as the bus stop where Montalbano picks up or drops off Livia, coming from or going to the airport. The actual location is more cramped than it looks in the films.

The airport is sometimes mentioned as Punta Raisi. This is Palermo's airport because in the stories for Vigata Camilleri had in mind Porto Empedocle which is closer to Palermo than Catania.

A few of the situations in the books and films are infeasible. In one he drives to another town for dinner but that would have involved several hours round trip in the real world. But stories live in their own reality.

Almost ready to move on to lunch.

The guide took us to a chocolate factory in the town. This was part of the tour itinerary. Modica chocolate is famous worldwide. It's made in an ancient cold-working process by mashing cocoa with fine sugar and sometimes with flavouring. Unlike normal chocolate which is tempered to be smooth, Modica chocolate feels granular in the mouth yet is strangely satisfying. I came away with a couple of bars.

After that tour we walked to a nearby bakery which served filled savoury pastries. This is what I had. I may have ordered a bit more than I should have.

In the films Adelina is a wonderful cook and Montalbano always looks forward to what she has cooked for his dinner. On this trip I tried to eat some of the dishes mentioned in the stories, mostly pasta dishes, but also a side dish called caponata. And of course the ice treat granita though this exists elsewhere in Italy.

For our final destination we were taken to the town of Ragusa. This is divided into two towns Ibla, and Superiore, the hilltop town. This is probably the hilltop town you see in aerial view in the opening credits.

By the way Ragusa is also the former name of Dubrovnik, Croatia. The cities are twinned.

Zooming in. On the way out I thought I spotted the corner with a church where a gunman in a motorcycle helmet fires blanks at old ladies going to church, in the episode The Cat and the Goldfinch.

We were taken on a walking tour of the town. Parts of it were used a lot in the films. In the distance is the Duomo di San Giorgio, the same name given to the Modica cathedral. It's used in the opening credits and some scenes.

The guide told us that this is the club where Dr. Pasquano plays cards and gets annoyed when Montalbano, eager to get autopsy results, disturbs his leisure. This is a recurring joke throughout the stories, Montalbano disturbing Pasquano's leisure, and Pasquano insulting him. But when the actor playing the doctor died, in the next episode filmed they worked in a funeral, and a tribute to the fictional doctor, by Montalbano and his men eating cannoli in silent tribute to Pasquano's sweet tooth.

This piazza looks very familiar but I can't associate it. It has probably appeared in several episodes.

This Ragusan park Giardino Ibleo has featured in several episodes, usually with the trees with full foliage.

Superfans (I'm just a fan) probably know all the nooks and crannies of Sicily filmed. Here's a page with a comprehensive list of locations used. I would love to see the sickle shaped sand spit in Excursion to Tindari, and the multiple locations that form the fictional island of Levanza in The Sense of Touch.

As mentioned, most locations are in the southeast corner of Sicily but the film crews have used locations as far away as the northwest corner. Obviously a really keen superfan would rent a car to visit the locations. I'll have to be satisfied with the scenes from the films.

And so we came to the end of our excursion and we were driven back to Catania.

And how does Camilleri end his characters' journeys? In the last story, Riccardino, written back in 2006, and kept in a safe until after his death, he decisively deconstructs all the characters by having The Author intrude into the story, complaining that Montalbano is not following his directions. The Author then takes control of the narrative by handing the case to another inspector. But in a final act of self-determination Montalbano erases himself and his world from the narrative, dissolving into fragments of words. Very meta.

Incidentally Riccardino betrays its age by mentioning fax machines.

So I will end this deep dive into the world of Montalbano with a fountain in Catania that I took a picture of the evening before. It's at Piazza Giovanni Verga, not far from my lodgings. Now we are back in the real world.