Tag: sizilien

  • Saint Joseph And The Spring Equinox

    Viva San Giuseppe! Saint Joseph’s Day is March 19, and today, I am thrilled to gather in New York City for our annual celebration of the father, the masculine, and spring’s arrival, and to see friends and family. The feminine mother Earth is coming back to life after the famine of winter. The masculine father…

  • Saint Joseph’s Day 2025 in NYC

    Celebrate Saint Joseph’s Day with Experience Sicily in New York City on Sunday, March 16 at Cacio e Pepe restaurant in the East Village. We’ll have a full traditional meal of maccu, pasta con le sarde, other dishes, and of course, sfinci di San Giuseppe (pictured)! Full menu at link below. Spots are filling up…

  • Ex-Votos in Sicily for Santa Lucia

    At the sanctuary devoted to Santa Lucia in Siracusa, pilgrims offer ex-votos shaped like eyes. Ex-votos are iconographic body parts or other symbols that are offered to a divinity or spirit guide as gratitude for healing or grace received. The eyes and heart pictured here represent ailments of the eyes (Need some insight or help…

  • Ragusa, Sicily Has So Much To Behold

    Ragusa is comprised of two towns, the ancient hilltop town of Ragusa Ibla, and the modern city that faces it on a plateau west of the old city. Ibla, named for the Iblean Mountains where is stands, has been occupied for millennia. We don’t know too much about ancient life in Ibla because in 1693…

  • Southeastern Sicily is Africa

    The southeastern provinces of Sicily, Siracusa and Ragusa, sit on a limestone shelf that is part of the African tectonic plate. So, when you are in Noto, Modica, and Ragusa Ibla, you are in Africa! The limestone plateau is millions of years old, and through it over millenia have cut many rivers such as the…

  • Walk In Sicily In February: Join Us for Wandering Sicily

    February 15 to 22 (President’s Week) I am co-hosting with naturalistic guide and Ragusa native Nanni Di Falco Wandering Sicily, a walking and cultural immersion experience in southeastern Sicily. We’ll be based in Ragusa Ibla for the week, and each day walk in the countryside. Temperatures are in the 50s and 60s, and green grasses…

  • Saint Martin’s Day Biscuits in Sicily

    November 11 is Saint Martin’s Day. In Sicily, it marks two important moments of the agricultural year. It is the day when wheat farmers must have finished planting the seeds for next year’s grain, and it is when, traditionally, wine makers taste their fermenting new wines (the juice/must that was created from August/September/October’s grape harvest)…

  • Sicilian Cookies For The Dead

    All Saint’s and All Soul’s Day (1 November) followed by the Day of the Dead (2 November) are upon us. In Sicily, we are seeing the pastries and cookies consumed to commemorate these feast days that fall during the season when the veil between life and death is thin. These S cookies are just one…

  • Porticello and the Madonna del Lume

    The Feast of the Madonna del Lume, the Madonna of the Light, in Porticello is a special one for me not only because the people’s devotion to her is so strong – – something beautiful to witness, but also because Porticello is where my grandfather, who came from a fishing and merchant family, was born. …