Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been categorized as “Sicily”
When I sat down to write my first blogpost 10 years ago, I wasn’t even sure what a blog was. I knew I had visited blogs on occasion, searching google for various topics, but I would have had to stretch my mind to picture someone on the other side of the earth doing the same thing and ending up on …
While at rest, the exotic figures attract a bold curiosity from even the smallest children. On the move, however, the large, otherworldly puppets not only send the wee ones fleeing for safety, but the towering effigies along with their accompanying ruckus have actually been known to frighten a former king and his entire military entourage into retreat.
Surrounded as we are by all sorts of diversions for our leisure time, have you ever wondered what served as the source of entertainment for children of the distant past? Or for the young at heart? Imagination and fantasy are not limited to contemporary times, so read on if you’re curious as to how people amused themselves, even before electricity, …
“I have never beheld the enchantment of the Straits of Messina, that Fata Morgana, when, under certain conditions of weather, phantasmagoric palaces of wondrous shape are cast upon the waters – not mirrored, but standing upright; tangible, as it were; yet diaphanous as a veil of gauze.” Thus spake Norman Douglas in his Old Calabria. The extraordinary vision, looking across …
Modern man has the tendency to think of himself as more evolved and cleverer than his predecessors, but things aren’t always what they seem. Perusing the pages of history books and visiting museums can lend a bit of perspective with regard to ingenuity over the ages. Take ancient acrolith sculpture, of which several noteworthy examples still exist, amongst them, the …
“Non mollare.” — Don’t give up. As we ring in the New Year with resolutions full of challenge and optimism, the advice of an octogenarian who has swum the Strait of Messina 23 times is as good as it gets. Add to that, he was 49 years old when he attempted it for the first time. Reggio Calabria native Elio …
The classic cone-shaped volcano huffs and puffs, and even erupts, regularly. In ancient times Stromboli was called the “lighthouse of the Mediterranean.” I had seen and admired its image from the coasts of Calabria and Sicily, as well as from the sea itself, but recently I had the opportunity to visit Stromboli in person.
Growing up in the United States, I’d see royalty on TV every so often and think of it as a phenomenon of a distant land. I figured I would have had a greater opportunity of meeting an astronaut. Then I began spending time in Italy and it seemed that I ran into royalty with a certain frequency. Perhaps not every …
UNPROTECTED FEMALES IN SICILY, CALABRIA, AND ON THE TOP OF MOUNT AETNA Intrepid is the word that comes to mind when characterizing women travelers in remote regions. Take Mrs. and Miss Lowe, two proper British ladies, a mother and daughter team that tramped all over the “continent” in the middle of the 19th-century to both the horror and delight of …