To Sicily

This morning we get up early for a 4 am bus departure to the airport to travel to Catania, Sicily. It’s only about 110 miles, and 30 minutes of flying time.

After getting to the hotel and dropping off our bags, we headed out to a cafe near Piazza Duomo for a brunch of granita and brioche. We tried the pistachio granita.

Both the Cathedral and the Basilica are on Piazza Duomo.

After brunch we looked around in the area and then went into the city hall building for a presentation by Georgio Maltese about Sicilian folk songs and instruments.

Georgio has been visiting communities with shepherds and looking for people that play these old instruments. He then gets them to teach him to play their instruments and also how to make it.

Georgio met David, an ethnomusicologist working on his doctorate at City University of New York. David has Sicilian roots.

I have some videos of Georgio playing a double flute/recorder, sicilian bagpipes, mouth harp and an organella (small accordian). I will add some after I return home as I don’t have my computer to compress them properly.

There is a little exhibition space in city hall and they had an exhibit on European military uniforms.

We headed to Belevedere Park to see what birds we might see. We heard the Eurasian Serin calling loudly, but still no photo. I’ve seen serins several times in the past year, but they seem to be shy about sitting for a photo. I saw two serins chasing each other at the North Africa Cemetary in Tunisia, which we visited earlier in this trip.

For lunch we went to Cafe Belvadere and had something called sicilian pizza. It is like a calzone, but it looked like it was air fried to me.

We passed by Chiesa di San Rocco and stepped in for a quick look.

There is a feast of Candelore di Santa Venera on July 26, that candelore are taken out on parade. We saw a few Candelores that are used in the parade for this feast in the back of the church. The various candelore represent the different guilds: shoemakers, carpenters and bakers, fishmongers and bricklayers.

Incidentally, there are more than 365 saints, so it’s possible to celebrate more than one every day.

Then we had a nap in the late afternoon to recover from the early morning.

Dinner was an included meal at a music themed restaurant. Our guide’s boyfriend who plays and teaches guitar stopped by to see her. Unfortunately, the meal was long and many were tired and didn’t stay till he started playing late. The decor was musical instruments.