Experience Sicily

Category: Traditional Dress

  • Friscalettu Duo

    Agrigento’s annual Sagra del Mandorlo in Fiore going on this week attracts groups from all over the globe, who display their traditional costumes along with exhibiting their culture’s beloved traditional music through performances and processions through town. Photographed in 2016 at the Festival by my cousin Filippo Buttitta, these two young men are playing the…

  • Sicilian Cart on Exhibition 

    This weekend in Trabia, the town that has documentation of being the first place to have made pasta (more than a century before Marco Polo returned from China), citizens celebrated the 26th Edition of Trabia in Sagra. Experience Sicily’s Evelina Buttitta was there today with her family to enjoy this Sicilian cart on exhibition as…

  • A World of Women’s Voices

    This painting by Ettore De Maria Bergler, hangs in Palermo’s Palazzo dei Normanni, the house of the Sicilian Parliament. Titled, “The Ruins of the Temple of Jupiter in Syracuse,” or “I Ruderi del Tempio di Giove di Siracusa,” it was painted in 1891.  Please join me in Middletown, Connecticut this Saturday, June 10 as part…

  • What to Pack for Your Summer Vacation in Sicily

    To help our Experience Sicily clients prepare for their trips, we supply a comprehensive packing list in their itinerary packets. Personally, I hate packing, so I love to follow a list of what to bring so I don’t have to think. ! Please, just tell me what to do! My itinerary packing list, however, doesn’t…

  • Clues for Watching l’Opera dei Pupi 

    Back before television was invented and became available in many households, in many of Sicily’s towns and certainly, in its larger cities, L’Opera dei Pupi, or marionette theater, was a major pastime for men and children of the popular classes. They loved to follow the trials and tribulations of their knightly heroes. A major character…

  • The Feast of Sant’Agata, Day 3

    My takeaway from the Festa di Sant’Agata in Catania last year was that there was a pure sense of fraternity, community, and hope among the “cittadini.” The faith that followers have for their patroness was so inspirational. And their faith in each other was as well. Taking a long view (and a New Yorker’s view),…

  • Sicily’s UNESCO Recognized Opera dei Pupi 

    The marionette puppet theater of Sicily is one of four traditions of puppetry from around the globe that is recognized by UNESCO as Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity–along with the Japanese Ningyo Johruri Bunraku, Indonesian Wayang, and Cambodian Sbek Thom. The Opera dei Pupi may be enjoyed at many theaters throughout the island, mainly in…

  • There Will Be Jousting

    Speaking of Lords and Ladies, this weekend head to Piazza Armerina for the annual Medieval Festival featuring period music, dance, jousting, and a Palio (horse race)! The citizens of Piazza Armerina don’t fool around–from 12-14 August, the entire town recalls the 11th century, dressing, eating, entertaining, and sporting in the style of the citizens during…

  • Folk It in Life

    Folk festivals are a highlight of summer, and this weekend, the 20th Folklore Festival of the city of Vita offers listeners and folk artists from around the world an opportunity to unite through music and dance. Sicilian groups like the one pictured, Gruppo Folk Soluntum, host groups from Georgia, Greece, New Zealand, Taiwan, and Honduras.