Sicily Guide

One of my favorite Sicilian reds… The wine: Planeta 2006 Cerasuolo di Vittoria, IGT Sicilia

The reason: This week’s wine is deliciously easy to like and thoroughly unlike any other wine I have tasted.

Cerasuolo di Vittoria is a distinctive wine made in south eastern Sicily, not far from those wonderful baroque towns Ragusa and Noto from the local Nero d’Avola, arguably Sicily’s best-known red wine grape, and the lower-acid Frappato.

Read more at Citywire.co.uk

Comiso Airport in the Ragusa province might be opening as early as September 10. Stay tuned for further news.

Sicilian culture is intense, vibrant and colorful.

During my travels throughout Sicily this week, I realize that Sicilians are healthy because much of their culture revolves around healthful ingredients as well as the dinner table. Meals and snacks are combined with daily exercise such as walking or biking.

For the recipe, visit www.mcall.com

A peasant and an island changed the life of the Llewellyn family, writes Kelsey Munro.

Lipari is the largest of the volcanic islands off the north-east coast of Sicily. Crowded with tourists in the summer, with honey stone buildings, painted fishing boats bobbing in the small harbour and the smoking cone of the active volcano Stromboli on another island of the same name on the near horizon, it is not an obvious place to have an environmental awakening. But that’s what happened when Marc Llewellyn took an Italian sea change with his young family.

Read more at SMH.com

Syracuse, Siracusa in Italian, was founded in 733BC. It was once a mighty Greek colony about triple the size of today’s city. There are many Greek and Roman sites of interest, including a Greek theater and Roman arena. The vibrant modern city is interesting as well and Ortygia Island has ruins and a small historic center.

read more at About.com

After decades of Mafia rule in Sicily, locals are fighting back - and they are asking tourists to help them, by staying in B&Bs, eating in restaurants and shopping in delis that refuse to pay protection money.

It was Sunday lunchtime in Palermo’s Piazza San Francesco and the air was thick with charcoal smoke and chatter. A vendor poked an octopus as it roasted on the open grill, releasing a whiff of warm olive oil and lemon that mingled with the city’s characteristic scent of brine and dust. A girl carried a tray of sweet cannoli high above her head, navigating stalls of sardine rolls and anchovies frizzling in floury pans. The crowd went about its usual business - church bells chimed and a christening party spilt out of Basilica San Francesco D’Assisi, bobbing the newly baptized bundle as they strolled.

Read more at The Gurdian

I’m standing on top of Mount Etna. I hadn’t really thought about what it would be like to stand on top of an active volcano.

I’d just casually thought: “Oh well, here I am in Sicily, I’d better go see Mt Etna.”

It’s bloody cold. I’d been warned about that. Still it comes as a surprise just how wintry it is up here. After all, when we left Catania at 8am it was shaping up to be a hot sunny typically Sicilian autumn day.

Read more at the Tasmanian Sunday

Thanks to his very entertaining blog, “Coaching for Pizza,” I was aware of some of George Contreras’ adventures coaching American football in Italy, which range from playing on fields with goal posts duct-taped in place to backing into a glass door and nearly setting Italian-American relations back by years.

But with the longtime local high school coach home this week — taking advantage of a bye in the Italian Football League to attend his son Mike’s graduation from Cal State Channel Islands — we had a chance to sit down for an update on life as defensive coordinator of the Catania Elephants, and the occasional culture shock of living in Sicily.

Read more at VenturaCountyStyle.com

Each spring, the fishermen of the little Italian island of Favignana go to sea to hunt giant tuna, which they harpoon and hoist on board their boats in a bloody ritual called the mattanza.

A traveler with a strong stomach can arrange to go out in fishing boats in May and June, the prime season on this island off the coast of Sicily. Other times, travelers with a sense of adventure can count on men such as Giuseppe Messina, 72, on whose boat, the Maria, I recently spent an hour and a half puttering around the island, sans life jackets, as we darted in and out of grottoes chiseled into rocky cliffs.

Read more at SeattleTimes.com

Roma went into this final match of the season just one point behind Serie A leaders Inter. The Giallorossi knew that they would win the Scudetto if they defeated Catania, and Inter drew or lost their game at Parma.

Catania meanwhile also had a lot to play for, as they needed a point to guarantee (barring a mathematical miracle) their survival, while a defeat would see them relegated if either Empoli or Parma won their respective matches.

The Sicilians were without joint top-scorer Gionatha Spinesi due to injury, and Mariano Izco because of suspension. Roma were minus the services of captain Francesco Totti, Rodrigo Taddei and Matteo Ferrari.

Roma had the first shot of the game, as David Pizarro struck a powerful effort from 30 yards that flew wide.

Read more at Goal.com

14 museums are open through midnight this coming Saturday and also free to the public. Here is the list of the museums:

Civica Galleria d’arte moderna “Empedocle Restivo”
Museo del Mare all’Arsenale Borbonico
Museo Mormino di Villa Zito
Società siciliana di Storia patria
Museo internazionale delle Marionette “Antonio Pasqualino”
Museo della Specola
Museo Diocesano
Archivio storico comunale
Archivio di Stato (sede della Gancia)
Museo di Mineralogia
Palazzo Chiaramonte (Steri)
Museo del vino e della civiltà contadina
Museo paleontologico Gemmellaro
Museo Collezionarea

Tourism and golf are put together by the Wine Tour Cup 2008 this coming Sunday May 18. The Golf Club Picciolo in Castiglione di Sicilia will host the event. It is an important initiative to promote tourism in Sicily.

According to Confindustria, Southern Italy can benefit from federalism. Italy’s plans to give regions more power over how they spend their tax revenue could be positive for the economy in the poorer south, the head of business lobby Confindustria’s Sicily chapter said, provided that “it keeps the country together.”

“For the South, federalism can be a stimulus to make businesses and local government more responsible, and that’s positive,” Ivan Lo Bello told Dow Jones Newswires in an interview.

Reforms letting Italy’s regions keep the bulk of the tax revenue they collect instead of sending it to Rome are at the top of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s new government’s to-do list. But it’s not clear how southern regions that run spending deficits will make up their revenue shortfall.

Read more at FSstreet.com

The Etna volcano in Sicily rumbled back to life on Tuesday with a “seismic event” followed by a burst of ash, volcanologists said three days after minor eruptions shook the cone.

A “seismic event provoking a strong explosion was recorded Tuesday at 0424 GMT (6:42 am local) in parts of the peak of the volcano,” the National Geophysics and Vulcanology Institute in Sicily’s Catania region said in a statement.

The explosion on Etna, Europe’s tallest active volcano at 3,295 metres (10,810 feet), was followed by a rain of ash on the southeast crater, “where significant gas emissions are occurring,” the statement said.

The institute dispatched experts on Tuesday to the site, but “the phenomenon currently represents no danger to people or property,” it said.

Saturday’s eruption, accompanied by streams of lava, was also at the volcano’s southeast crater.

The last eruption of Mount Etna was in November 2007, two months after another eruption forced a temporary closure of nearby Catania airport due to flowing lava and clouds of ash.

The last major eruption was in 2001.

Source AFP

Italian cyclist Daniele Bennati won the third stage of the Tour of Italy here on Monday to record his first ever success in the race.

His Liquigas team-mate Franco Pellizotti retained the overall leader’s pink jersey.

Bennati - winner of two stages in the Tour de France and three in the Tour of Spain last year - edged out German veteran Erik Zabel in a sprint finish at the end of the 221 kilometres ride - Zabel’s compatriot Danilo Hondo was third.

However, the stage saw the end of Australian rider Bradley McGee’s challenge as the 32-year-old - who wore the pink jersey for two days in the 2004 Giro - took a crashing fall around 20 kilometres from the finish.

McGee looked to have injured his collarbone.

Another group crash involved Sunday’s stage winner Riccardo Ricco, but the Italian was able to resume the race, though, he suffered a suspected fracture of the index finger of his left hand.

The Giro moves from Sicily to the Italian mainland on Tuesday with the fourth stage, a 183km ride from Pizzo Calabro to Catanzaro lungomare.

Source AFP
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