Experience Sicily

Tag: catania

  • Carnival in Sicily

    Teams of townspeople spend months planning and creating fantastic floats to showcase during Carnevale in Acireale. This animated Zeus from 2017 was a awe-inspiring work of art, especially at night, when the papier mâchè character was lit, as pictured, and he threatened to throw his flashing thunderbolts. During the days and evenings of Carnevale, the…

  • The Most Beautiful Carnevale in Sicily

    As we approach Ash Wednesday next week, throughout Sicily revelers are celebrating Carnevale. Acireale, where I was for last year’s party, is the place to be! Over the next few days, tens of thousands of people will process through the town’s streets wearing costumes while throwing confetti, eating Sicilian-style almond nougat and other sweets, making…

  • Sant’Agata Inspires Community in Catania

    Catania’s faithful engage in back-breaking activities to illustrate their devotion and honor their patroness, Sant’Agata, during these days of the feast. Through rituals, they emulate her suffering over three days of torture. Meanwhile, the “cittadini” also help each other and are kind and communicative with each other to get through the work. For example, to…

  • Celebrating Saint Agatha in Sicily

    Viva Sant’Agata! For the next three days in Catania, Sicily’s second largest city, devotees of Sant’Agata will feverishly celebrate the virgin martyr who is identified by iconography where she is carrying her breasts on a plate. The city’s patroness (pictured as Roman soldiers attempted to burn her at the stake in this painting photographed in…

  • Travel to Sicily For A Feast Day

    Feasts, and how Sicilians celebrate them always inspire me. I recommend you plan your dates around such an event. For example, today I’m envious of our clients who are in Acireale to experience the fervor; for annually on January 20, the town in the province of Catania recognizes one of its patrons, Saint Sebastian, with…

  • The Silvestri Craters

    The Sivestri Craters, a series of volcanic craters that exist on Etna’s south side, were formed during an 1892 eruption. 1900 meters above sea level, they are accessable by car when you navigate to Rifugio Sapienza in Nicolosi. The craters are named for Professor Orazio Silvestri, a geologist and volcanologist who dedicated much of his…

  • Catania’s Persephone Fountain

    This fountain, Fontana Ratto di Proserpina (The Rape of Persephone Fountain), exists in Catania at the Piazza Giovanni XXIII. It was sculpted in 1904 for Sicily’s second largest city by Giulio Moschetti (1847-1909). Moschetti is the same sculptor who created the Fountain of Diana in 1906 for Ortigia’s Piazza Archimede. With a nod to the…

  • Rocks of Science 

    In addition to these rock stacks (or faraglioni, as they are called in Italian) being associated with the cyclops Polyphemus and Homer’s crafty Odysseus, they are also part of a nature preserve and research area owned by University of Catania. The largest of the faraglioni (pictured left), the island of Lachea, has been a biological…

  • Watch for Falling Rocks 

    Gli Scogli dei Ciclopi, the Rocks of the Cyclops, are basalt (volcanic) rocks that protrude from the sea at Aci Trezza, a fishing community on Sicily’s east coast, north of Catania. Local legend says that these are boulders from Mt. Etna, thrown here, into the sea, at Homer’s hero, Odysseus, after he and his men…