You would have laughed with along with your new “Sicilian family” while having your hands in the dough today as you made fresh cavatelli pasta with tomato sauce and learned the art of cutting prickly pears with our local mamma Annalisa (who is an expert with Fichi d’India cactus!). You would have felt right at…
Tag: agrigento
Persephone, The Goddess Of The Underworld, And Sicily
Persephone is the daughter of the great goddess Demeter and the Goddess of the Underworld. Here she is as interpreted during the 2019 Arches of Easter in San Biagio Platani (Agrigento). (Yes, this art is made with beans and other natural elements!) During these last weeks of summer, she is preparing for her annual return…
My Visits With Hugo At Valley Of The Temples
This is Hugo. I miss him. Normally, during every visit to Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, I get a chance to say hello to him. Last year, that was six times. Of course the temples are always impressive… but on some days (for me), Hugo steals the show. I miss our flirtations. Hugo is…
Yes, Brioche Con Gelato for Breakfast
In the summer, this is breakfast in Sicily: brioche con gelato … or gelato in a brioche. The brioche, when it’s done right, is sweet and formed like a breast. It represents your mother’s milk (no kidding). Pistacchio gelato is my favorite. Pictured here, when the pistachios are organic and the gelato all natural, this…
Inspired By Siculiana Marina’s Beach In Sicily
How does one describe one of the most beautiful beaches in Sicily? Words aren’t always sufficient. If it’s any indication of just how magnificent Siculiana Marina is, Sicilian guitarist Francesco Buzzurro composed an entire album of songs inspired by it called Il Quinto Elemento (The Fifth Element). When I heard him perform pieces from it…
Summer Breeze Above the Sea at Scala dei Turchi
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.
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…