Scala dei Turchi (aka the Stairs of the Turks) was named after a local legend that recounts when Turkish, AKA Saracen, pirates scaled the white cliffs that pour like stairs into the Africa-facing sea.
Tag: agrigento
Icarus, Daedalus And Sicily
Icarus got carried away with the ability to fly. His father Daedalus, an inventor, craftsman, and artist, created two sets of wings for Icarus and himself to escape imprisonment in Crete. Daedalus instructed Icarus not to fly too high and not to fly too low: The heat of the sun would melt the wax holding…
Sicily’s Valley Of The Temples’ First Temple
The Temple of Heracles (or Hercules or il Tempio di Ercole) of Agrigento, Sicily’s Valley of the Temples possesses eight reconstructed, massive Doric-style columns. Built in the late 6th century BCE, it is considered the first temple to have been constructed of the seven that we know of at the Valley of the Temples. Valley…
Sicily’s Teatro Andromeda Is A Work In Progress
Shepherd and sculptor Lorenzo Reina’s Teatro Andromeda in the Sicani Mountains in the middle of Sicily, scrapes the sky. Although it feels ancient, the theater, which sits 1000 meters (3280 feet) above sea level, was built by Reina one stone at a time over the past 30 years. When you talk with the Lorenzo, he’ll…
Behold Princess Sicilia, A Legend
Behold Princess Sicilia! A legend thought to have originated in post Byzantine times (c. 535 CE to c 827 CE). Long ago, along the sun kissed eastern coast of the Mediterranean, perhaps on the shores of modern-day Lebanon, a baby girl was born to a noble family. Her proud parents named her Sicilia. The couple’s…
A Symbolic Sunset In Agrigento, Sicily
May 8th and 9th mark the anniversary of two important moments in Sicilian anti-mafia history. In 1978, Giuseppe “Peppino” Impastato, a political activist who vociferously exposed and confronted the mafia, was murdered by the unscrupulous cell in his hometown of Cinisi. And in 1993, just down the street from this temple, pictured (said to be…
Yes, Chandeliers Made With Pasta, Dates, and Corn
Do you see the pasta? The chandeliers or “ninphe” of the Arches of Easter or Archi di Pasqua in San Biagio Platini are made of natural elements. Learn more about this extraordinarily creative feast in Sicily from the latest episode On Sicily, when I talk with local insider Pierfilippo Spoto. More at https://experiencesicily.com/2020/04/16/conversations-on-sicily-vol-2020-2/
Conversations On Sicily, Vol. 2020.2
Join Allison Scola, owner of Experience Sicily, along with Pierfilippo Spoto, owner of Val di Kam, for a conversation about one of Sicily’s most artistic annual feasts produced by the citizens of San Biagio Platani in Agrigento Province.
Spring Day In the Center Of Sicily
A meadow of crimson clover and a hillside outside of Sant’Angelo Muxaro, Sicani Mountains, Agrigento Province, Sicily
A Hidden Corner of Sicily
Aldo’s workshop in the countryside of San Biagio Platini, Agrigento Province, Sicily