The Independent Puts the Sicilian City of Catania on the Tourist Map

Why spending 48 hours in Catania, Sicily? Here is the answer from the Independent.

Next weekend, the Sicilian city of Catania stages one of southern Italy’s biggest and most dramatic festivals, the Festa di Sant’Agata. Passions hit fever pitch as up to one million people take to the streets to celebrate the city’s patron saint and watch as her relics are paraded around town by teams of white-shirted devotees.

Festivities apart, Catania is a delight, with a stately Baroque centre, terrific street markets, great food and a bubbly nightlife. And winter is a good time to visit: temperatures are mild, about 15C; there are very few tourists around; and Mount Etna provides some thrilling views, its snow-capped summit rising menacingly over the city’s rooftops.

Read more at www.independent.co.uk

Castellammare del Golfo

Castellammare del Golfo (Sicilian: Casteddammari) is a town and comune in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name is roughly translated “Sea- Fortress (castle (on the) sea) of the Gulf”, deriving from the medieval fortress in the harbor. The body of water it sits upon also takes its name from the fortress, Golfo di Castellammare.

In ancient times, Castellammare had been the harbor of Segesta, one of the main towns of the Elymian people. Fishing has been important in Castellammare del Golfo dating back to ancient times. Today the town’s economy continues to be based on fishing with the addition of tourism.

The small town is noted, however, for having been the birthplace of many American Mafia figures, including Salvatore Maranzano, Stefano Magaddino, Joseph Barbara, Gaspare Milazzo, Peter Magaddino, Giovanni Bonventre, Pietro Caiozzo, Gaspare DiGregorio, Matteo DiGregorio, Sebastiano Domingo, Giovanni D’Anna, Francesco Puma, Camillo Galante, Pietro Crociata, Michele Adamo, Girolamo Asaro, Francesco Garofalo, Giovanni Fiordilino, Giovanni Tartamella, Joseph Buccellato, Francesco Buccellato, Vito Buccellato, Natale Evola, Vincenzo Danna, Charles DiBenedetto, Jimmy Costa, Giovanni Romano, Sasa Parrino, Cola Schiro, Joseph Notaro and Joseph Bonanno.

From this name comes also the Castellamarese war, fought by Joe Masseria clan against Salvatore Maranzanoclan for the leadership of the Italian Mafia in New York City.

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Sicily’s Hidden Gems

If you are looking for less touristic destinations, consider Sicily and within Sicily consider Terrasini or Castellammare del Golfo.

Recently our friends Maria Lina Bommarito and Joe Zarba have sent to us marvelous photos of less known spots in Sicily: Terrasini in the Palermo province and Castellammare del Golfo near Trapani.

Terrasini is located 19 miles (30 km) west of Palermo, between the mountains and the Gulf of Castellammare near the Palermo International Airport. Terrasini’s population works mainly in fishing and tourism. The population triples during the summer. Bounding communes are: Carini, Cinisi, Partinico and Trappeto.

Castellammare del Golfo (Sicilian: Casteddammari) is a town and comune in the Trapani Province of Sicily. The name is roughly translated “Sea- Fortress (castle (on the) sea) of the Gulf”, deriving from the medieval fortress in the harbor. The body of water it sits upon also takes its name from the fortress, Golfo di Castellammare.

 

Note: This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from theWikipedia article “Metasyntactic variable” and Creative Commons by Commons Deed. This information was accurate when it was posted, but can change without notice. 

Siracusa (Video)

The area of what is today Siracusa was settled in ancient times, as showed by the findings in the villages of Stentinello, Ognina, Plemmirio, Matrensa, Cozzo Pantano and Thapsos,all of whom lready had links to Mycenaean Greece.

Siracusa was founded in 734 or 733 BC by Greek settlers from Corinth, led by the oecist Archias, who called it Sirako, referring to a nearby swamp. The nucleus of the ancient city was the small island of Ortygia. The settlers found the land to be fertile and the native tribes to be reasonably well-disposed to their presence. The city grew and prospered, and for some time stood as the most powerful Greek city anywhere in the Mediterranean.  (from Wikipedia).

A beautiful video of the archeological area of Siracusa (3:10).

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Five Reasons to Visit Catania According to the TIME Magazine

by Stephan Faris

From beaches to renaissance art, sometimes it seems as if there’s nothing the Italian island of Sicily doesn’t have to offer. And if there’s one city that captures it all, it’s Catania — a great place to take in the mountains, the Mediterranean, folk traditions and fantastic food, all in the course of a day. Here are five Catania essentials.

 

1. The Fish Market
Kick off the morning in the lively piazza nearest the Duomo, where fishermen hawk their catch, before strolling under the 18th century arch. Work up a hunger as you weave through stalls selling seafood of every description, then head for lunch at the nearby Osteria Antica Marina.

2. The Teatro Romano
In the heart of the old city, ordinary storefronts look onto the ruins of a wide Roman amphitheater — a typical fusion of ancient and modern Catania. There’s an upstairs museum with great views.

3. Mount Etna
Coughing up the odd blast of ash or smoke, Catania‘s nearby volcano is impossible to ignore. Visit by car or circumnavigate it by train.

4. Savia
Fabulous local pastries often pay tribute to St. Agatha, the local patron saint. This pastry shop offers ricotta-based minnuzzi (Sicilian for breasts) that provide a tasty, if not tasteful, symbol of her martyrdom.

5. Fratelli Napoli
The southern Italian tradition of puppetry lives on in this lovely theater, which, after four generations, is still in the hands of the Napoli family.

Noto’s Infiorata

May 13, 2011 5:00 pm

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May 16, 2011 5:00 pm

May signs the beginning of the summer holiday season in Sicily with temperatures in the mid to upper 20s Celsius (in the 70s F). Noto’s Infiorata, one of the most colorful festivals anywhere in the world, takes place every year in the middle of May.

For two and a half days, Via Nicolaci, one of Noto’s many delightful streets, is taken over by local and foreign artists who work together on a set theme to create a kaleidoscopic carpet of petal mosaics using flowers grown specifically for the event.They set up shop and begin work on their allotted pieces of pavement on Friday and the show is open to all-comers on Saturday and Sunday. A variety of other activities, including parades and sideshows, add to the general carnival atmosphere and the delightful, ingenious Baroque palazzi and churches of Noto provide a perfect backdrop.

Monday morning is the day of the town’s children, who are let loose to run through the temporary artworks in a symbolic display of destruction and renewal. Part celebration of Spring, part homage to Noto’s virtuosic artistic heritage, the festival provides an excellent excuse for a mid-May getaway.

By Maria Lina Bommarito

TripAdvisor Chooses San Vito Lo Capo as Best Italian Beach

San Vito Lo Capo in the province of Trapani wins TripAdvisor’s “Travelers’ Choice Beaches Award 2011” as best Italian Beach. The selection is based on millions of reviews and opinions posted by travelers from all over the world.

This beautiful town in Northwestern Sicily is famous for the crystal-blue water of the Mediterranean Sea and the  2 mile long fine gold sand beach. The weather is best in the summer months, but San Vito Lo Capo has much more to offer all-year-round. Every September the town hosts the “Cous Cous Fest”, an international festival of culture and gastronomy of the Mediterranean.

By Maria Lina Bommarito

The Cous Cous Festival in San Vito Lo Capo (Annual Event)

September 20, 2011 5:00 pm

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September 25, 2011 11:59 pm

The ancient fishing village of San Vito Lo Capo, located between the Gulf of Castellammare and the city of Trapani on the northern coast of Sicily, hosts an annual Cous Cous Festival each September. The festival takes place from  September 20 through 25 this year.

Dedicated to exploring the culinary and cultural aspects of the tasty Mediterranean dish, the festival celebrates the cultural legacy of the Arabic peoples who ruled Sicily for more than 150 years. Cous cous originally arrived in Sicily with the Arabs from Morocco and other areas of Northern Africa who landed on the island in 827. By 903 they ruled all of Sicily and would continue to do so until the Normans began their conquest of the island in 1060. Despite the change in rulers the cultural and culinary stamp of Arabic culture would remain.

Cous Cous

Cous Cous is a food from Morocco of Berber origin. It consists of spherical granules which are made by rolling and shaping moistened semolina wheat and then coating them with finely ground wheat flour. Traditional couscous requires considerable preparation time and is usually steamed (Wikipedia.org). Cous cous is a communal meal, that comes served from a large round platter. Another variety of cous cous, Israeli cous cous, or by its Arabic name, maftoul, is larger–almost pearl-size–nuttier-tasting than its familiar Moroccan counterpart.

The Festival

San Vito Lo Capo’s Cous Cous Festival‘s principal event is a cous cous cook-off with the best cous cous Chefs from Israel, Morocco, Egypt, France, Algeria, Tunisia and Italy participating to determine who indeed is the cappo of cous cous (the best chef) in the Mediterranean.

The festival also includes six evenings of music, featuring free performances by Sicilian and international artists.

Source: www.couscousfest.it

The Ashbee Hotel in Taormina Reopens on April 1st and Launches a Butler Service

The Ashbee Hotel in Taormina reopens on April 1st and launches a new butler service, The modern butler may still function exclusively as a top-ranked household affairs manager, in lesser homes, such as those of dual-income middle-class professionals, they perform a full array of household and personal assistant duties, including mundane housekeeping [Wikipedia].

Located in a peaceful 20th century Sicilian Villa in the heart of Taormina, the Ashbee Hotel was built in the 1908’s by Colonel Shaw-Hellier who commissioned the famous architect Charles Robert Ashbee, English designer and entrepreneur, prime mover of the Arts & Craft movement.

Easy to locate, just few steps from the main street and chic boutiques of Taormina, the hotel offers easy access to the main theaters, museums and all over objects arts, historical heritage of the city. A short walk leads to famous restaurants, to enjoy an excellent cuisine.

Today, this new charming house offers some of the finest accommodation in Sicily. With 25 guestrooms and suite, you will find everything required for a relaxing stay, screwing up one’s eye to English style, representative symbol of The Ashbee Hospitality.

This description is based on information provided by the hotel.

Address

Viale San Pancrazio, 46
98039 Taormina
Tel: +39 0942 23537
Fax: +39 0942 626227
Email:  info@theashbeehotel.com
Web site: www.theashbeehotel.com

Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina (Enna) Reopens on March 19

On March 19,  the Villa Romana del Casale in Piazza Armerina (Enna) reopens to the public daily from 9AM to 4:30PM. It will be a partial reopening since restructuring works will keep going for a couple of weeks in April.

This luxury villa was built at the end of the 3rd century AD. Its floor is almost entirely covered with beautiful and detailed mosaics with scenes of everyday life and divinities. It is the richest and largest collection of late Roman mosaics in the world. The Villa Romana del Casale is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The villa burnt and was covered by a flood around 1161. It was discovered in the 18th century.

Highlights: the frigidarium (the cold bath room); the Hall of the Female Gymnasts in Bikinis; corridor with hunting scenes; the Myth of Airon.

Address: Piazza Armerina (Enna)
Località Casale
Tel.: (0935) 568 00 36
Fax: (0935) 68 71 83
Web site: www.villaromanadelcasale.it

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