Comic Strip: “When it snows in Sicily”, post about Christmas folly, the snow in american movies and the sicilian concept of technical apparel

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

New type of post today, short and with a comic strip (the illustrator is Palzaz) at the end 🙂 for a faster and, I hope, more pleasant reading. Actually because my neuron is still confused by the tons of butter and eggs of last days and I can’t write more 😛 but two days ago the Poetess announced an extraordinary event, the snow at Erice and I wanted to share this pleasure with you.

It was a hot Christmas, litterally, 18 degrees (I remind you that Christmas date is in December and Sicily is located in the northern hemisphere, good deal above the Equator), I cooked the Christmas Eve dinner wearing just a T-shirt and the weather didn’t look winter-like but luckily the childhood Home Alone binge had shaped my american taste for Christmas decorations and looking around in my home it was impossible to forget that date, there were: tree + three tons of decorations (did you ever see Macy’s trees? 😀 ), crib with real stones and real cypress branches and all insects that lived under the stones and on the cypress branches, additional small trees and little cribs strewn everywhere, lights, theme pot holders and apron and finally my favourite ones, the handmade paper ice crystals, those which my niece shows to her pals while pass by schoolbus to go to the gym (There aren’t gyms in almost all schools at Trapani and children and guys have to go in other crumbling town gyms. Just one in reality).
Trapani is a seaside place, every year it’s cold for two months but with 12 degrees (a low temperature for us) and a violent cold wind, the turists sneer when listen this our impatience, they know the real cold, probably they know the snow!

The snow, the real dream of people of Trapani and all sicilians who live near the shore. Who has ever seen the snow? Here there is the rain, often the wind and nobody likes the winter, at least there was snow! To play with snowballs. Because it’s very romantic, as in american movies. Because the schools would be closed and this is more romantic, above all for my niece. When my friend, the Poetess, said “It’s forecast to snow for the next days” my heart shouted “HURRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Erice is on the mountain that overlooks Trapani. Its high is 751 metres, it’s little taller than a hill, and people of Trapani have many expectations about it, snow included, but there isn’t ever hardly ever it.
Many years ago, maybe 16 years or 15 or 13, here everyone remembers a different period, there was a great snowfall and all people went up to the Erice mountain, as far as they could reach without the chains, here nobody have them. I remember a tiny plot covered with snow and stormed by tens of people, old and young, everybody wanted a bit of snow and mud to make a snowman, there were one hundred of wonky snowmen but we weren’t trained. The children wore two pairs of pants to engage the Great Cold and after that winter there were just few hailstorms and sleetstorms, but that memorable Snow Glory lasted two days was unique and we still talk about it. Maybe you deride us but the snow is a wonderful and very romantic thing for us, so enjoy the first comic-strip of the blog “When it snows in Sicily”

When it snows in Sicily

If you want to correct my English (please, be kind because I’m a sensitive person and I’m learning) or suggest something, you can write to fioredinespula@gmail.com
If you want to sleep in Belveliero and see the snow by surprise you can write here bebilveliero@gmail.com (write FIORE in the email 😉 )

It seems Games of Thrones but it’s Erice! We come back to Middle Ages…thanks to actors, fencers and…tailors!

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

Story of date lasted a weekend, not a couple of hours.

First attempt on last Saturday evening: we go to Erice by cable car, dine in a very good restaurant, it’s 22 o’clock, we hear the distant drums and we try to move towards the tam tam.

Nothing, they have passed and they’re done.

We meet a young girl in tunic whereas we are dropping the hands because of cold and nothing, the procession with the fire-eaters will pass through the square in half an hour but in the meantime we can try to go to the castle where other actors still make something, there are the stands and a theatrical performance. Come on!

…and after a long day of work they don’t wait us, they are clearing out all. While others take off their costumes we succeed to pick up a glass of Inzolia with free offer, poured from a majolica jug, so that makes the scene, and by a medieval innkeeper, which makes the scene even more.

Hey, hold it! Go back to the square, she said there are fire-eaters. We go back to square then, oh well do you think we don’t find the show already over and the flood of people who have seen it all and comments?

This “date” was a failure, only the vision of fluttering brocade drapes in the main streets remained 😦 “Honey, go for a walk in sweet little lanes, while you look in the courts I admire the knockers” and after a quarter of an hour, defeated by the cold (actually Giovanni): “Honey, let’s go back home.”

First Round End.

By the way, it’s FedEricina, an event to commemorate the coming to Erice of Frederick III and his wife Eleanor of Anjou during the Sicilian Vespers. It ‘s the first year that they do it and drew different groups of musicians, actors and fencers from all over Sicily.

Frederick III of Sicily

and his wife Eleanor of Anjou

Second Round.

Two days later, on Republic Day. John unexpectedly free, weather threatening rain ‘Honey, where do you want to go?‘ … But once they do a cool thing don’t we come back? It rains and you don’t appreciate the salt pans with the clouds, then back to Erice!

Hurraaaaahhh!! The parade there’s, there’s, there’s still! We are late as usual, but we are here!!!

It’s the gathering of the “Historic groups of Sicily” and we find them during the parade in the main street, towards the Real Cathedral. It’s a show that gives satisfaction because it is really long, but not too much and you can enjoy it enough without getting bored. In addition, the street, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, is not large, so we could see the impressive tailor work and also have the nerve to touch it, so we were close. Among pearls, embroidery and metal mails it seems a (very) convent school versin of Games of Thrones.

“My” Frederick and Eleanor

The Three Graces

Which historical episode is remembered? The coming of Frederick III and Eleanor of Anjou to Erice during the Sicilian Vespers, in the thirteenth century. But how, is Erice so ancient? Well, if you think that the first settlements were of the eighth century B.C. Frederick came yesterday practically . I don’t want to bore anyone with a long history lesson (maybe another time), Vespers was a rebellion of the Sicilians who didn’t want to be dominated by the French and asked for help to Aragon. The Sicilians asked Frederick III to become their king and he was elected officially by the Sicilian Parliament, a well-advanced Parliament, even in advance of the English one, since there was also a representative of middle class who could participate in the drafting of laws ( at least in theory). In short, Frederick agreed, and from that moment he didn’t leave Sicily, but he moved in far and wide in the island and arrived also in Erice, where he stayed to continue the war against France and against Naples.

Sicilian flag was born during Vespers!

The tower next to the Duomo in fact was a watchtower, then recycled into a bell tower. The cathedral was built by Frederick, as a thanksgiving for the hospitality, it’s a shame he used to build it pieces of the ancient Venus Temple and in fact they say that you can see much older Egyptian crosses (” they say” because I’ve been entered there only once and I don’t remember it very well, so with the excuse of the blog I sign a second visit and then I’ll tell you 😉 ). The Cathedral in reality also served to put many stones over the worship of Venus has not yet disappeared completely.

There’s also a monk! 😀

Inside it’s not like the original version, and one day I’ll run away and show it, it’s in neo-Gothic style and is all white, seems to be made of whipped cream, then you’ll understand why! I said, Frederick arrived here with his wife, Madame Eleanor, of which we know little or nothing because, although she’s the queen, she was always a woman so she’snotimportant. Bah. But we know her marriage when she ten years old with a peer and annulled because of too young age of the spouses (eh!). But she wasn’t considered too young two years after to marry Frederick and give birth the first of the nine royal puppets. I do not know how this could be interested but the gossip is always less boring than dates of Vespers.

About the FedEricina I have little to tell you bacause despite the choice of blazing sun and storm proof date, that day we caught assuppaviddani rain (drizzle that spills the farmers did not take off work) and a wind that just in Wuthering Heights, so there’s not fire shows, much less flag-wavers! Anyway we saw a beautiful medieval dance and above all, a medieval fencing duel with swords weighing 8 kg each. If there weren’t antennas on the roofs, with all the extras around, it would be really the thirteenth century, and we enjoyed it seated on the stairs of the cathedral, while the people escaped because of blows of the wind.

Ehmmm…

Shame for their efforts but good for us because if wheater was good here would have been packed and I really don’tt like. Erice is beautiful when there are few people and you walk on the quiet lanes and can look inside a former church from the cracks of the door. Certainly I don’t recommend it in the summer, you should elbowing, literally, and you won’t see anything. In the end we even had fled and we started to walk for the tertiary streets and courtyards. Without the mini (thankfully) confusion during the parade, paradoxically, we appreciated more the medieval atmosphere, but the splash of color of the girls costumes was not bad. 🙂

Floweeeeeeeers 🙂

Bad weather, nice guy 😉

While we put head in the courtyards we even asked an old man to let us admire his one, one of the most beautiful Erice according to him, but I’ll tell you this story another time!

If you want to correct my English (please, be kind because I’m a sensitive person and I’m learning) or suggest something,
you can write to fioredinespula@gmail.com
If you want to sleep in Belveliero you can write here bebilveliero@gmail.com (write FIORE in the email 😉 )
If you prefer to sleep in Granveliero and have breakfast with me write to granveliero@gmail.com