Sicily Guide

My friend, Franca Calderone, is a professional photographer in Sicily. Here are some beautiful pics of her last trip to Mount Etna. Absolutely gorgeous!

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It is Ferragosto in Italy and everybody is at the beach. If not at the beach, everybody is off from work FOR SURE.

Wherever you are - even if at work :-(, enjoy your Ferragosto!

Somewhere along the line, Sicily’s signature dessert must have won an award for the unhealthiest dessert imaginable. Looking conspicuously like a clogged artery, the best cannoli here combine large amounts of cheese, sugar, eggs and … pork fat.

Crunch into a good one, however, with the flavors and textures of the crisp shell surrounding the filling of subtly sweetened fresh ricotta, and all those bad thoughts disappear quickly.

Read more at ChicagoTribune.com

A British tourist on Wednesday complained to police after being presented with a 30-euro bill for three sandwiches at a bar in a Sicilian seaside village.

The tourist had been with six other people - including two native Sicilians - at the bar, which is set back from the sea in the village of Tusa on Sicily’s northern coast.

”We ordered something to drink and three small rolls - two with salami and mozzarella and one with ham and Swiss cheese,” explained another Italian from the group, adding that there had been no price list in the bar.

The bill, which came to 43 euros, listed the sandwiches at 10 euros each.

Then, they wonder why tourism is down!

Read more atAnsa.it

THE North West of Sicily remains one of the more undiscovered areas of Sicily boasting the best golden sandy beaches, aquatic nature reserves, picturesque harbour towns, and amazing architecture with towns such as Marsala, Palermo and Trapani.

Read more at BirminghamMail.net

As more and more backpackers pop up near my adopted home in Ireland this summer, I’m reminded of my own freewheeling adventures as a budget traveler. One particular episode, though, stands out above all the others.

In the spring of 1986, after several weeks’ worth of trains and planes, I found myself sitting alone on an unfamiliar doorstep in Sicily. I also found myself questioning the wisdom of traveling 5,000 miles from my family home in Medford to revive my father’s neglected lineage.

Read more at Boston.com

Southern Italy’s well-known port city of Palermo, located on the island of Sicily has been undergoing a transformation in recent years, making it a popular place for travelers, tourists, and now international property investors. This city has a long and historic past and has recently been working to bring new interest into the city and island.

Over the past several years, roads have been repaved and rebuilt and a new found pride in the city is being seen and felt. This is partly a result of the EU working to tone down the infamous corruption on the island, and partly a result of the growth of travel and tourism in this part of the world.

Read more at HomesGoFast.com

It is a record: 16 Sicilian athletes will be attending the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games! Forza, ragazzi!

Here are their names:

Giorgio de Luca (weightlifting) Palermo
Anita Pistone (athletics) Catania
Vincenzina Calì (athletics) Palermo
Gian Nicola Casale (judo) Messina
Fabiana Sgroi (canoe) Palermo
Carmela Incerti (athletics) Bagheria (PA)
Silvia Bosurgi (water polo) Messina
Maddalena Musumeci (water polo) Catania
Cinzia Ragusa (water polo) Catania
Chiara Brancati (water polo) Catania
Genny Pagliaro (weightlifting) Caltanissetta
Antonio Scaduto (canoe) Augusta (SR)
Valerio Vermiglio (volleyball) Messina
Mauro Maugeri (water polo) Catania
Claudio Licciardello (athletics) Giarre (CT)
Luca Marin (swimming) Vittoria (RG)

Other eight athletes are already part of the Olympic Club:

Alessandro Cavallaro (athletics) Paternò (CT)
Giuseppe Gibilisco (athletics) Siracusa
Anita Pistone (athletics) Mascalucia (CT)
Simona La Mantia (athletics) Palermo
Vincenzina Calì (athletics) Palermo
Rosario La Mastra (athletics) Raddusa (CT)
Emanuele Di Gregorio (athletics) Castellamare del Golfo (TP)
Domenico Rao (athletics) Catania

For a complete list of all the Italian athletes at the Olympic Games, visit http://au.sports.yahoo.com/olympics/athletes/?c=ITA&p=1

Often regarded as the island being kicked by the boot of Italy, Sicily is actually the largest Italian region and boasts glorious countryside, ancient archaeological sites and is the infamous home of the Italian mafia.

The island’s capital is Palermo and the city is more than 2,700 years old, although there is evidence of human settlement in the area from as long ago as 8000 BC. In 734 BC, the Phoenicians established the beginnings of today’s city because of its prime location on the coast. It is thought to be originally called Ziz, but the Greeks, who had a dominant presence on Sicily at the time, renamed it Panormus (meaning “all-port”) and from there it evolved into today’s name. Today, Palermo is home to around 650,000 inhabitants.

Read more at BestSyndication.com

The NYTimes.com has put together 14 images of the capital of Sicily. Check them out at http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/07/27/travel/0727-36HOURS_index.html

An ancient Greek trading ship that had lain on the seabed off the coast of Gela in southern Sicily for 2,500 years was brought to the surface for the first time on Monday. The ancient Greek vessel is 21 metres long and 6.5 metres wide, making it by far the biggest of its kind ever discovered. Four Greek vessels found off the coasts of Israel, Cyprus and France are at most 15 metres long.

Read more at Ansa.it

Sicily is the key to Italy, as Goethe once wrote, and one novel is the key to Sicily: “The Leopard,” Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s masterpiece. This tale of the decline and fall of the house of Salina, a family of Sicilian aristocrats, first appeared in 1958, but it reads more like the last 19th-century novel, a perfect evocation of a lost world.

Read mroe at IHT.com

Corleone is a strange little Sicilian town, its squares and streets adorned with plaques honouring famous anti-mafia campaigners. Methought they did protest too much: as I joined the Corleonesi on their evening stroll one Easter a few years ago, I couldn’t help noticing that the young locals had styled themselves as extras from The Godfather.

Apart from lending its name to one of Hollywood’s best-known fictional families, Corleone spawned an organised-crime clan of exceptional brutality, even by the standards of the Sicilian mafia. After the second world war, a local doctor, Don Michele Navarra, and his psychotic henchman Luciano Leggio, transformed the clan from a band of cattle rustlers into the masters of the town. Their ascendency was followed, in the 1970s and 1980s, by that of Toto Riina, who strangled, shot, bombed and poisoned his way to the position of capo di tutti capi.

Read more at TimesOnline.com

The Italian government was ordered to pay $160,000 to a gay man who received a driver’s license for the disabled after he volunteered information on his sexual orientation to military authorities, the man and a gay-rights group said Monday.

Danilo Giuffrida, 27, said he told officials about his homosexuality when he took a physical after being called up in 2000 for Italy’s mandatory year of military service, which has since been abolished.

Giuffrida told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from his hometown, Catania, that he had hoped to avoid service and keep working to help support his family. Giuffrida was disqualified for psychological reasons.

Read more at The Associated Press

On a sun-drenched morning last week in Palermo, the Sicilian capital, a bunker-like courtroom in the Ucciardone prison was the scene of a rare challenge to the mafia. Bosses and low-ranking “soldiers” stared fixedly from their steel cages as seven shopkeepers – hidden by shaded glass – identified those who had allegedly collected extortion money from them for years.

To date, 18 Palermitans – owners of bars and pizzerias, shops and car showrooms, even a street vendor who sells olives – have picked out their tormentors, for whom extortion rackets are the key instrument to control a neighbourhood.

Read more at the TimesOnline.com