Giro in Sicilia!

the domes of San Cataldo, Palermo

 Ciao tutti!!

Wow, I have a lot to share with you!  I have been having such a fabulous time on my Sicilian adventure!  I've just finished my second WOOFing farm experience, it was great!  Although I did not actually perform any farm type tasks such as working with plants...  I learned a lot and made some great new friends.  As mentioned, I spent most of my days sanding and painting various fences, eating a lot of awesome food and playing scopa, my new favorite card game.  Overall, it was very relaxing with little else to do other than chat & do some simple tasks.  This morning my pals & I went out for breakfast & I was happy to indulge in a typical sicilian treat.  The delicious granita and brioche.  This is basically a sugary sweet sorbet that is eaten with a yummy sweet roll.  I chose almond & pistachio flavors, yum!  Not the healthiest start to the day but surely one of the tastiest!  Then after some typical transportation schedule confusion they saw me off on a bus to Siracusa, a charming old town about an our south.  I spent the day exploring the town & taking photos, to post next time.

What we have in this blog posting is a plethora of photos taken over the past few weeks in my explorations of Sicily.  I feel like the worries & stress about my job & life in Roma are far behind me & that was really the main goal of my current trip.  To make my time in Italy feel like a success rather than a job failure!  Success!  I've done it!  I've also decided to return to the USA in June to stay in the midwest with my family for a bit to regroup my thoughts about what to do/where to live in the near future.  Just some minor decisions...  HA!  To tell the truth I am panicked about my return to the "real world" of the USA however, it has become clear that as much as I really would like to, I am not going to be able to ignore financial concerns forever.  Really, I would like to!  But, wouldn't we all?  I hope to be able to continue living la dolce vita in one way or another.

So, here are some photos that I hope you will enjoy.  Ready, set.... GO!

Near Palermo there is a small city called Monreale that is well known for it's famous cathedral with a lovely chiostro & marvel of mosaic artistry!  There was a mass going on while I was there but that didn't stop me and a load of other tourists from taking photos!

view of the choistro, each column is decorated with mosaic & every one of the column capitals is different

the entire central nave is decorated with mosaics that depict traditional christian stories.  the ceiling is also crazy intricate!

went to an art museum in Palermo & was fascinated with watching these art restoration students work on a sculpture.  Painstaking work, indeed!

lots of medeival art, eveyone has grey skin.

a depiction of the annunciation scene that i liked.

the fontana Pretoria, it was controversial back in the day because of all the nudity in close proximity to a church.  oh my!

 My 1st farm host took me on an excellent giro through western Sicilia.  We 1st visited the pretty coastline @ Castellamare del Golfo.  The clouds & sea were gorgeous!

 Then we ventured to the quant town of Scopello, where there is a particularly beautiful coastline.  Historically, the area is famous for seasonal tuna fishing, & this place was used for that, it is called a tonnara.

here is an intricate scheme that was used to catch the tuna until overfishing curbed the catch & more efficient modern techniques came about.  

 Then we visited the small town of Erice, up on a hill above Trapani.  It was cloudy & windy up there.  It reminded me of being in a small medieval town in the Umbria regiona.  Very picturesque!

 We then visited Segesta, home of an ancient greek ampitheater & temple.  During the summertime they  have performances of traditional greek tragedies as well as music.  Wouldn't that be sweet to see??

the greeks would generally build their ampitheaters oriented so that as the sun set the lighting & color on the performers would change.  Acting as a kind of natural stage lighting.  

the temple itself was huge!  gorgeous!  well preserved!

back at the Ballaro market in Palermo in search of new & interesting fruits

found!  loquats!  there are called nespola here.  i remembered liking them but the ones i bought here tasted foul. 

as i had a little picnic these kids had a lively game of calcio

"Fontana del Genio a Villa Giulia" - the Genius of Palermo, a symbol of the city

 Before leaving my first farm, Marisco, I took a little hike up to see these windmills on the hill above the farm.  I had been wanting to do it much sooner but honestly, the weather had been total crap most of the time.  It was worth it!

here's the place I stayed.  It was cute!

this is what i was looking like most of the time.  

AHA!  Here are the jars that I spent many days labeling.  super cute!

I visited a friend from the USA who is also an upper cervical chiropractor, living in Trapani, Sicilia.  It is a nice, Arabian influenced town & my hosts showed me all the sights!

looking out to the Egadi islands

coastline of Trapani

the last land of western sicilia, where the tirrenian & mediterranean seas meet

Trapani is world famous for salt!  They collect seawater in pools & then harvest the salt after the water has evaporated.  This is the salt museum

here are some piles of salt

here I stand on a large pile of salt.  I tasted it, it was good!  salty.

here are some fuzzy new almonds

 Then I took a bus down to Agrigento to view the valley of the temples.  It was a beautiful day & the temples were pretty.  During ancient times this was an important greek zone.

acacia

the best preserved, temple concordia

despite being called valley of the temples, they are actually on a ridge :)

temple above olive trees

these huge dudes used to be the columns of one of the temples, note the tiny guy sitting in the chair at left.

an array of lovely old greek phalluses

 Then I rambled on to Catania on the east coast of Sicilia.  It is the 2nd biggest city on the island after Palermo & it seemed vibrant & full of old baroque buildings.  I liked this fountain in particular!

the piazza of the duomo (cathedral)  this cute elephant is made of volcanic rock from Etna, which looms over the city.  The elephant is the symbol of the city!

 And then...  I took a quick trip up to Messina on the north eastern tip of Sicily to visit a friend for the day.  He took me to see the strait of Messina that separates Sicily from the continent of Italy.  It was cool!  I especially liked it because it is the setting of where Odysseus must figure out how to get between Scylla (seamonster) & Charybdis (whirlpool).

the water is actually churning here in a huge whirlpool.  It is charybdis!

and this crazy guy is windsurfing in it!

and my crazy friend was swimming in the cold sea on the non-sunny day!  (Across the strait there is a big rock called Scilla that is supposed to represent the rock that the sea monster sat on)

there is an ancient ampitheater right in the heart of Catania!  It was pretty neat to see in amongst all the buildings.  

the theater of Catania

here is the fabulous view of Mt. Etna that I've had for the past two weeks.  I've really enjoyed waking up in the morning to see her.  I am thinking about climbing Etna in the next day or so.

Yay!  Here are my pals I made at Samadhi Center.  We were happy & we had fun!  

That is all the news for now my friends.  I'll be touring around & maybe on internet more so will be able to stay in touch a bit better.  I have been thoroughly enjoying myself & feel so lucky to have the time in my life right now to have new adventures & make new friends.  Life is good.

Big hugs! xx