The sunniest part of Sicily in the center of the island.
Car racing is big in Sicily. Targa Florio is one of the oldest and most famous car races in the world and began in 1906.
Six Characters in Search of an Author is by Luigi Pirandello. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1934. He had the gold melted the next year for help fund the Italian army.
Lions of Sicily is a critically acclaimed dramatic series that is based in Sicily.
People speak Sicilian at home but school is taught in Italian. It is the official language. They are also taught English.
Sicily has nine capitals with the same names as the provinces. Each should have a university as a national standard. There are only four. When a public school has less than 100 students, the government requires that it be shut down. Rural areas suffer the most and the parents are hesitant to have children.
The Villa Romana del Casale, a UNESCO site, is full of beautiful mosaics.
Mosaics are a sign of Roman wealth. This villa was in a valley and was covered by a landslide. The mosaics are well preserved.
Since he had his own aqueduct, the owner was very rich. He apparently sponsored hunts and dealt in exotic animal trade.
Italians have no word for privacy. The 18 toilets arranged in a semicircle in the Roman baths bear this out.
The word SPA was thought to be an acronym but is likely a “backronym”. A normal acronym is a word derived from the initial letters of the words of a phrase. By contrast, a backronym is an acronym deliberately formed to create a memorable name.
The Latin phrase Sanitas Per Aquam means “health through water”. This does not appear before the early 21st century so it could not have been from Roman times.
Chocolate only melts due to butter. Chocolate de modica is basically cocoa and sugar. There is no butter or milk. It is an old recipe brought back from America via Spain in the 1500’s. It is the first chocolate made in the Old world. Cocoa contains lots of iron.
Agriturismo Casa Bianca
IGP means that it is a local product.
We see a lot of prickly pear farms. These cacti were brought here from Mexico as well.
Pasta sauces can have such interesting combinations such as lemon and dill or orange juice and mint.
We arrived in Ortigia where we stayed in a 14th/15th century convent that has been partially converted to a hotel.
Ortigia is the historic area of Syracuse (Siracusa). Greeks landed on this island and then expanded onto the mainland.
Today marks the Festival of Santa Lucia (Saint Lucy) commemorating a miraculous event in 1646 when Syracuse was hit by famine.
This evening, everyone in town had gathered for the celebration by bringing out the Santa Lucia statue from the church.
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