Tourist Cards in Sicily: the whole truth (+ list of all sicilian tourist cards)

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

[WARNINGS: THIS POST IS VERY LONG. In the beginning I chat like an old dumb but the useful part is further down]

Yes, I’m here…late. The original version of this post (in Italian) was written in February but I hadn’t time to complete the translation, all sorts of things are happened in the last month.

February was very cold in Sicily this year and we waited the snow on the coast again (fortunately not as in New York). In fact it was rather probable. This winter is totally strange and crazy, it’s snowing under the sea too. Usually it’s not so cold in Sicily, it doesn’t snow near the sea here, maybe the Apocalypse is coming…
During those cold days I thank to stay at my sweet home and do a big research for you. When I began to write this blog, I promised to give you also useful information for your holidays in Sicily, but I’ve got lost chasing the butterflies, as usual.

I noticed that the tourism season is coming (snow in June permitting) and remembered that a very popular question from who wants to come to Sicily is “Are there Tourist Cards in Sicily?”, the pass that allows to travel on the bus free or buy a disconted ticket for a museum.

Mmm, the services for tourists in Sicily are very inadequate because sicilians think that the attractions of the island are enough for tourists and they come in any case here. In this setting sicilians are often indolent and disorganized and all tourists notice that the island is beautiful but services are pathetic or non existent.

Attention, please! Appeal to IDontKnowWho, we want more Tourist Cards because the Tourist Cards are #VeryBello.

Who has more facilitations, wants to do more things durin the holidays because he/she has more money, can discover more (unless the rats in Palermo, I hope), spend more money. The feedback is simple, giving motivation. If you are a 20 years old tourist or a father with three sons or an university student, it could be hard visiting one, two or more museums. But if the ticket is discounted I could spend my time without excessive privations. We are late with services in Sicily, basic services too. Maybe these things are usual for other Europeans but they are extra-ordinary for us. The discount logic is never losing in my opinion. I make an example. There is a shop in Via Roma 178, in Palermo, tiny and busy of things, its name is Miele (Honey. They trade “metal and gothic stuff” (sorry, but my knoledge ends here). This shop is full of stuff, full of rings, full of sculptures, full of clothes but there isn’t the space to damage anything. And back the counter of stinking new truck tires a figure appeares, like a ghost, a little old man with white hair and a simple azure shirt, he’s the owner. The salesgirl is invisible among the exposed merchandise, too dark, too piercings, too laces but the owner stands out seraphic among the skulls. Some years ago I decided to buy the Christmas gifts fon my brothers in this shop, because is the most equipped one in the Western Sicily. I don’t remember the exact conversation but at a certain point I congratulated with the old man for his shop and said that I went purposely from Trapani, it was true. He looked up to me and said “Where do you come from, Miss?“, “From Trapani“, “And how much is the ticket for the bus from Trapani?“. It was about 8 euros, “Therefore I reduce the check of 8 euros, to repay your dedication” (my check was less than 30 euros). I still tell this episode and not because the shop is well equipped. Do IDontKnowWho understand?

[End of appeal]

I know you couldn’t care less about this economy tale, but I think that, sometimes, it’s sad renouncing to something that we would like to do because the money aren’t enough. I like to see works of art which I usually view in the books little like stamps, and I like to talk about them, for many times, to many different people. In this way you have high topics and win a package of “Aunt, you know everything!” and self-esteem from your niece 😀 . Anyway I think that other people have the pleasure to discover new things and all (could) have the pleasure to see happy and satisfied tourists 🙂
Beautiful things start beauty circuits, give ideas, light creativity and…and…I had to talk about the Tourist Cards in Sicily and I’m roaming like an old dumb! @_@

I FINISHED 😛

After this very very long introdution I can say that some Tourists Cards exist in Sicily (Hurrah!, Hurrah!) but their research is hard. Somebody gets a move on and many cards are very recent. I found these cards but I could modify the post sometimes, to add or change some information. I’ve written the general information considering the questions which I could ask to understand if the card is suitable for me and there are all links.

WESTERN SICILY

– Trapani Area

1.Trapani Welcome Card
This Card lets you have discounts for services and visits in sites of naturalist interest in the areas of Trapani, Erice and Aegadi Islands.
GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like? It’s a book of coupons
B. Concerned AreaTrapani town, erice, Marsala, Salt Pans, Aegadi Islands.
C. How many days is it valid for? It’s valid for 3 days starting from the date written on it.
D. How much does it cost?If you buy it in the indicated points of sales, it costs 12 euro, whereas it’s 11,50 euro if you buy it HERE with Paypal. There aren’t time limits between the moment of purchase and that one of reclaim, you have to indicate the point of sale where you want to pick up the card. You have to exhibit the printed voucher and an identity document.
E. Discount size From free entry up to 50% discount. You recover soon the expense for card, considering that a ticket with return for Erice cable car costs 9 euro for non-residents.
F. How many people is it valid for? One card for one person.
G. What is it valid for? Examples: all travels by bus are free and one ticket with return for cable car to go to Erice too. There are discounts for excursions to Egadi Islands or the entry for little thematic museums. The detailed list is HERE ( in the drop-down menu)
H. Where can I buy it? In the points of sales indicated HERE or online HERE
I. Is there the App? Yes 🙂
2. Pantelleria Tourist Card
It’s Pantelleria Tourist Card. It’s the sicilian Cards which offers the smallest discounts but it’s better than nothing, Pantelleria isn’t a cheap isle.
GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like?
You’ll receive:
• The Card
• A Pantelleria Tourist Guide with tips about what to do, itineraries, the best beaches and other sights. There are road indications too.
• A detailed Map of Pantelleria
B. Concerned Area Pantelleria Island
C. How many days is it valid for? It’s valid for all duration of holiday. They write the expiry date back.
D. How much does it cost? 10 euro
E. Discount size From one free drink up to 20% discount for several purchases.
F. How many people is it valid for? One card for all
G. What is it valid for? Some restaurants and dress and typical products shops but there are also boating tours and free tickets for some pubs and bars. HERE the complete list
H. Where can I buy it?
• At the Policardo car rental desk in the Pantelleria Airport
• At Policardo rental car in Via Messina 31 (in the village center)
• At “Consorzio Turistico Pantelleria Island”, Piazza Messina 18 (in the village center)
I. Is there the App? Yes, it’s detailed, easy and free. You can download it HERE

– Palermo Area

3. PMO
It’s the Tourist Card of Palermo City
GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like?
You’ll receive:
• The PMO Tourist Card (you can use it to benefit of discounts for visits in cultural sites, the exhibits, shows and purchases)
• The City Map of Palermo It indicates to you all the museums, churches and cultural sites (look the list at Nota Bene in the description “Palermo City Guide” and at the point 3G), There are also 4 different walking itineraries in the old town and all the bus lines to be found
• Bus Ticket thanks to which any Amat city public bus will drive you “merrily” around the city
• Palermo City Guide. It includes the descriptions of 4 itineraries and the locations of cards selling point . There are also suggestions about private and public transportation and you can find all addresses and opening and closing time of all the museums and shops in town. (Nota Bene 1: you’ll receive also an additional update list of cultural sites and shops where you can have the discounts. They are less than those ones indicated in the printed map. They can’t throw away the old maps, paper costs much and we don’t understand the concept of recycling! Nota bene 2 Among benefits you can receive medical care by phone or outpatient medical aid in an agreed clinic. Good to know)
• Vouchers They can be used for free eating and drinking at bars and restaurants where you can taste typical Sicilian specialities. (But I prefer the nameless little kiosks but well known by citizens 😉 )
B. Concerned Area Palermo Old Town (Do you really think it’s not remarkable? Therefore I say that it’s one of biggest in Europe)
C. How many days is it valid for? There are cards valid for 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours
D. How much does it cost? From €13 to €75 if you buy it at Palermo. If you buy it online, you can save from €2 to €5 ( Look HERE)
E. Discount size From free up to 50% discount
F. How many people is it valid for? There are cards valid for one person or two people
G. What is it valid for? Churches, Museums, Theatres (Teatro Massimo and Opera dei Pupi (Sicilian Puppets Opera) included), Public Transport (Bus AMAT and the City-sightseeing Tour) and Private Transport (taxi, rental car and bike, Ape Tours and even a Theatre-Bus with a live concert show on the road), Medical Assistance, some tours and purchases in typical shops and pubs. The complee list HERE
H. Where can I buy it? You can buy it at Centro Informazione Turistica (Tourism Info Point – corner between Via Maqueda and Piazza Bellini) and other points of sale, they are all HERE with addresses, opening hours and phone numbers. If you click on the pictures find a detailed info box.
You can buy it online HERE by credit cards or your PayPal account and you’ll recive a voucher valid for 60 days, within which you must exhibit the voucher and an identity document to reclaim the card in one of the points of sale indicated. So don’t buy the card online 5 months before, because they won’t give back the money! Moeover if you change idea about your card you can revoke the purchase online within 14 working days if you want your money back.
I. Is there the App? Yes, HERE
4. Musei Palermo Card

It’s an unique ticket to access 4 museums and 2 exhibition centers in Palermo. It lasts a long time so if you stay in Palermo for many days or live here, if you come often to Palermo or if you are a group of people with different interests or you like the shopping at museum bookshops this is the Card for you.
I don’t know why they don’t create a page in english so use Google Translate from the italian page 🙂

GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like? It’s a red card.
B. Concerned Area Palermo city
C. How many days is it valid for? It’s valid for one year starting the date of emission in the first museum.
D. How much does it cost? 13 € if you buy it at the museum ticket office, €14,50 online.
E. How many people is it valid for? One entrance for every museum, but the card is not personal.
F. What is it valid for? One free entrance for following museums: Galleria d’arte Moderna “Empedocle Restivo” (the Modern Art Gallery), il Museo internazionale delle marionette Antonio Pasqualino (the International Museum of puppets. Only for the museum, the shows are excluded) , Palazzo Branciforte, Ecomuseo del mare (Ecomuseum of the Sea), the exhibitions at Palazzo Ziino and at Cantieri Culturali della Zisa (ZAC).
Cooking class organized by Gambero Rosso, an important italian multimedia editorial group which is involved in all about food and wine.
A 10% discount for the puchases at museum bookshops and cafés.
NB 1. the Modern Art Gallery (GAM) is one of sicilian museums of the italian event “Domenica al Museo” (look at the point number 9 at the end of this post)
2. The tickets for some of these museums are discounted with the PMO Tourist Card (look the preceding point). So consider the best card for your need.
3. Before the purchase check if you can have other discounts for your age/nationality/job

G. Where can I buy it? At the museum ticket offices or online HERE
H. Do I have to book it before? No
I. Is there the App? NO.

5. Carnet for “Le Vie dei Tesori”
“Le Vie dei Tesori” (Treasures Ways) is a wonderful festival born in 2006 thanks to a Palermo University initiative. It’s proposed every autumn, in October, and lasts one month by now, 4 weekends to be exact. Nowadays there are other institutions/partners, as Diocese, the municipality, the Federico I Foundation and the port authority. During the Festival many places and buildings, closed for much of the year, are open to the public, so unknown to most palermitan citizens too. NB Actually, over the years, they included other places in the list, that you can visit on other days of the year, to attract more people. The best thing of Festival is that the Treasures/Places are disclosed and experienced with guided urban walk tour (the guides are volunteers of Palermo university), in Italian and English language, with exhibits, concerts and shows. For the time being it’s only an autumn initiative (October) but the Festival is increased in these years and its duration will extend in the future. Here the link of Festival (you can read it with Google Translate)

NB In the last few years other Treasures, outside Palermo, are added to the list. They are in isolated areas of Palermo and Trapani territories (but very far from the towns!).

Below I describe the discounts with the Carnet of Coupons to visit many different “Treasures”

TIPS
1 – The guided urban walks are very valued but with a limited number of subscriptions so book it long time before the fixed date.
2 If you want to visit a particular place, check if it’s open only for this event before. If you can visit that places in other days of the year probably it isn’t advantageous choose these days to see it because the row is very very long, above all during the last weekend. You save few euro but waste your time. To drain the row, often, they don’t open all floors in the villas but just one. So if you want to do a complete tour choose the other days. Sometimes they create surreal situations, for example to visit the Chiesa dello Spasimo. The visit is free for the rest of the year but during the Festival you have to waste a ticket.

GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like? The Carnet of coupons is just a QR code. You can buy it online and they send the code to your email address. Print the code (or bring the smartphone) to avoid to pay the full price ticket at the site. The price for each coupon decreases if you buy more coupons. If you want to visit many places buy the Carnet and not the single ticket each time.
B. Concerned Area Palermo City and some places outside Palermo and Trapani. Someones are very far from these towns.
C. How many days is it valid for? The calendar of Festival was 5 weekends in October, last year. Obviously each event has a different duration. The urban walks last from 40 minutes to half an hour, for example.
D. How much does it cost? The cost is variable. A type of carnet costs € 10 for 10 tickets to visit as much indicated places (there were more than 60 treasures last year); another one costs € 5 for 4 visits and then you can buy just one coupon for one visit spending € 2 . Each urban walk is € 3 whereas the events are free or cost from € 1 to € 6.
E. How many people is it valid for? One coupon is valid for one person so if you are a group, divide a carnet! 🙂
F. What is it valid for? The calendar is full of dates and it changes every year. Last year you could visit crypts, libraries and palaces, the Museum of Sicilian Puppets and the wings of Teatro Massimo and Teatro
Biondo, various naturalistic museums, the catacombs and the Miqveh (Jewish Bath). HERE and HERE the complete lists of places and walks (Only in Italian), they are so beautiful that it turns heads 🙂
G. Where can I buy it? You can buy all ONLINE, they will send a QR code to your email address. Don’t forget to show the code, printed or on smartphone! If you are more people and want to visit different place you can buy a carnet. Anyway you can buy it at the site but only to visit the places, you need a booking for walks.
H. Do I have to book it before? The booking is NECESSARYfor the walks, there is a toll free number and an email (The website describes the last Festival so I wait for the new edition to write them in a revised version) to do it. The booking for the events is ADVISED if they don’t write different instructions or if the number of partecipants isn’t enough and you are in those parts you can ask for partecipating. The booking for visits ISN’T NECESSARY.
NB You can’t book the day before but you have to do within the Wednesday preceding the concerned weekend. I suggest to book some weeks before for walks, to not find sold out.
I. Is there the App? NO.

EASTERN SICILY

– Catania Area

6. Catania Pass
It’s the Tourist Card of Catania City
GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like?
You’ll receive:
• The Pass
• A Ticket for Transport With this unique ticket you can use all the urban routes managed by AMT, the Alibus fast line
(Airport-Center) and Ferrovia Circumetnea Metro line.
• A Bilingual City Map with useful information about Catania and the museums.
B. Concerned Area Catania City
C. How many days is it valid for? There are Cards valid for 1 day, 3 days or 5 days
D. How much does it cost? From €12,50 to €38
E. Discount size For the time being all sites indicated (see the dots at point G) have FREE ENTRY, except the special exhibitions. In that case you have however the right to a discounted rate. For other places (for example shops and restaurants) there is from 10% up to 50% discount.
F. How many people is it valid for? There are two types of Card, Standard just for one person or Family, designed for a family of two adults with one or two children under 13 years.
G. What is it valid for?
• Castello Ursino
• Museo Belliniano
• Museo Emilio Greco
• Museo Diocesano
• Terme Achilliane
You cand find more activities and shops HERE scroll down, there is Discounts and Agreements. There are tours but I’ve found also an antique bookshop and a download mp3 audio-tour of Catania city center (Click on GUIDES)
H. Where can I buy it?
• Catania Tourist Info point at Vincenzo Bellini Airport
• Catania Tourism Bureau (Via Vittorio Emanuele II, 172)
• All Museums included in this program
• AMT Subscriptions Office
• AMT authorized retailers joining the initiative which expose Catania Pass logo
I. Is there the App? No

DIFFERENT PLACES IN SICILY

7. Onsicilycard
It’s a Card that allows to have discounts and to access to a digital tourist guide. The Card is constantly updated both the partecipants list and prices of tickets and opening times. It’s a card/guide in English and Dutch language.
GENERAL INFORMATION
A. What it looks like? It’s a Card (but there is the digital version) that allows to have discounts and to download an up-to-date file for navigator to find all partecipating places indicated. Moreover you can find many information about Sicily.
B. Concerned Area Many different places in Sicily
C. How many days is it valid for? It’s valid for a whole year.
D. How much does it cost? It’s free for children younger than 12 years, €5 for children from 12 to 18 years and €10 per adult. If you buy it online there is a 25% discount. You can buy one card and add all people of your group/family.
E. How many people is it valid for? All people added on the card.
F. What is it valid for? There are discounts for B&B, restaurants, workshops, activities, shops and others. All partecipants are HERE, just select the category interests you.
G. Where can I buy it? You can order it online HERE and they’ll mail it, so it’s better if you place the order at least 10 days before your departure. Anyway there is the option “I’m already in Sicily” with a list of places where you can buy the card

8. Sicily Card App
It’s a newborn App for various places in Sicily but on the website there are few information so far. When they’ll advertise more information I’ll write them here 😉
GENERAL INFORMATION

A. What it looks like? It’s an App
B. Concerned Area Many places in Sicily
C. How many days is it valid for? There are versions valid 24 hours, 3 days and one week.
D. How much does it cost? They’ll advertise the prices to the end of March (maybe the first days of April maybe first days of June Last post on Facebook, 15th June 4th February: Work in Progress >_>)
E. Discount size They’ll advertise it to the end of March (maybe the first days of April. maybe first days of June Last post on Facebook, 15th June 4th February: Work in Progress >_>)
F. How many people is it valid for? They’ll advertise it to the end of March (maybe the first days of April maybe first days of June Last post on Facebook, 15th June 4th February: Work in Progress >_>)
G. What is it valid for? They’ll advertise it to the end of March (maybe the first days of April maybe first days of June Last post on Facebook, 15th June 4th February: Work in Progress >_>)

I’ve found other tourist cards but discounts are minimal so I decided to not write them here.

9. Extra Tip

There is a wonderful initiative in Italy, #DomenicaalMuseo, every first sunday of month there is FREE ENTRY in all national museums (not for private ones). You find the complete list of interested museums in Sicily HERE

Finally I’ve finished this post 😛

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;
If you prefer to sleep at Granveliero and partecipate to cooking workshops write to granveliero@gmail.com (write FIORE in the email to receive a discount! 😉 )

Eccentricity of Sicilian people at the table in 22 points, Second part.

I had to publish this post before Christmas but… this is my snail blog, above all the English (my terrible English, I know) version, so, please, forgive my lateness 😦
Anyway here the second part of the post about the strangeness of sicilians. Sicilians are very strange people in general and they think ever the food so imagine the multitude of absurdities of this people at the table. At least 22, here the first ten, now the others 🙂

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

11. The “sfincione” pizza. It’s the second culinary incomprehension in Sicily. The “sfincione“, a typical street dish of Palermo, isn’t a pizza! and Palermitans get angry when you make the mistake. It’s a two fingers tall dough, dressed with tomato sauce, onions and “grascia” (dirt), because the best sfincioni are sold on the street, in little carts, built by the pitchman’s grandfather and NEVER cleaned by the grandmother. The best street food in the world is made with decades of bacteria, oil and spits, sorry 🙂

12. The italian dictionary is wrong. If you ask for marzipan fruit, anybody tell you that marzipan doesn’t exist in Sicily. Try to ask for “Frutta Martorana” and they’ll pass bucketful of almond scented fruits to you. The bread crumbs? It doesn’t exist too, there is the “muddìca” or “mollica” in Sicily.

13. A satanist son is better than a vegan one. I think that with the exception of caponata and marzipan fruit, there aren’t many dishes without pig, sheep or horse meat, milk and derivatives, without pecorino or ricotta cheese in every form. The survival in Sicily is very very hard for a vegan. If you don’t eat cheese, egg or meat and are sicilian, don’t say it to your grandma or mother, they may feel bad. Get off! At night, in exile, but I don’t know who could help you. Being a vegan condemns to loneliness and to disqualification from every social event of sicilians, first among everything the feast of grilled sausage and bacon on Easter Monday, but also that one on 25th April (Italy’s Liberation Day), on 1st May (Labor Day), on 2nd June (Italian Republic Day), on Assumption day (a religious holyday, 15th August) and for every sunday on which you don’t know what to do and someone makes the land, the garage or the balcony, available.

14. I don’t like ricotta cheese. It’s a variation of 13th point. It’s a rarity but there are people who don’t like ricotta cheese. The sheep would be worth staying on the flag of Sicily, in place of Medusa and being declared sacred, together to its biggest gift, the milk…and the ricotta cheese. Hot, cool, sweet, salty or baked, it’s hard to avoid it in Sicily but nobody wants to do it! Hating ricotta is like hating Nutella, who declares a such heresy is looked with suspect and diffidence.

15. Eat slowly. Me and Giovanni are sicilian but when we sit down at the table, Giovanni seems Flash Gordon’s lost son, grown among ostriches in Africa. Fortunately opposites attract and when I’m at the table the time expands, my time perception collapses and an hour seems a quarter. During the meal we talk and waste time, with one dish or five ones, we relax and decompress the worries, till the coffee and the grappa. When I eat the second second course (it’s not echo), Giovanni has worn the jacket. There are few people as Sicilians who have understood the pleasure to eat but when there are the lessons about this concept, Giovanni was at the toilet.

16. Eat a farm quickly. Sometimes the reality imposes a chaotic rhythm and a quarter-hour must be of 15 minutes. Ok, Giovanni, sometimes you’re right. But we are in Sicily and the health is important for sicilians, so we can’t be satisfied with only a plate of pasta for all afternoon. For this reason we can eat three dishes, the sweet and the fruit in a quarter hour. To not faint at work and survive till the snack hour.

17. The sunday lunch never before 2 p.m.. It’s rudeness to ask someone to have lunch on Sunday at midday or at 1 o’clock, we aren’t at the hospital. We have to do so many things before! Breakfast at 9 a.m., the break at 10.30, the second break at 12.30, for example with an ice-cream. The midday is the perfect time to eat it because it’s cold and doesn’t occupy too space in the stomach. Aaaaafter you can have lunch, neither before 2 p.m. nor after 4 p.m., it’s Sunday!

18. Being ready for emergences, ever. We do much shopping and cook many dishes for one meal for this reason. Anything could happen and it will happen that day you won’t be ready, as in the perfect version of Murphy’s Law. The famine could come or it could snow for ten minutes and we could be blocked at home because of one millimeter of snow, because nobody has the chains in Sicily (excluded in hinterland). Eating much helps to mantein the corporeal temperature or to have a reserve for cells for the period of famine. We could faint while we are crossing the street, we could die in that case! The palermitan drivers look the traffic light for pedestrians and start when it’s yellow, to gain time, after all the traffic light for drivers will be green in two minutes, it’s the same! A relative with his five sons and daughters in law could arrive or a bus full of tourists could have broken down in front of your house and we don’t chase anyone away and staying all together is always pleasant. We could meet friends at the beach and it’s rude to not invite them under the umbrella to have lunch. Here’s why, sometimes, you see set tables, chairs and baking trays with “anelletti al forno” (baked pasta) at the beach! And also if you don’t meet anyone…all know that the beach whets the appetite! 😀

19. Give back the plate clean. For the emergences (see 18th point) and for courtesy. If there is half kilo of pasta in your plate, you MUST eat all, because it was cooked on purpose. Nobody wants you feel bad because of hypoglycemia near the traffic light. More over, when you will talk about that meal, you will not have to say that there was little food. Obviously you must go for seconds. You can reject the third offering only if you say to want a double portion of sweet.

20. The last spoonful is embarrassing. Before the last little piece, part or slice of everything, the commensals become like the young couples at the first month and stand on ceremony. (In reality all want the last piece and who decides to leave the formal dispute, after regrets. I say always “Yes, I want it” at the first time 🙂 )

21. Cheese on the pasta with sea food. Montalbano Commissioner hates this combination too. Sicilians hate bad made arancine, bad called sfincione but above all they hate the cheese on the pasta with sea food. If someone sees you to do it and wants to take your scalpo with the spoon, nobody will help you. And they’re right.

22. The Earth goes around the Sun, Sicily goes around the Food. Sicilians talk ever about the food and think it continuously. Sometimes a dude arrives at work, at 9 o’clock, and ask to you “What will you have for lunch?”

Don’t forget, it’s to laugh. Obviously we don’t eat caponata for breakfast every day, nor cannoli (as tourists think), but it could happen. (Once I ate caponata for breakfast, but it was midday U_U) 🙂

Bye, bye and sorry for my usual delay and my terrible English.
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 😉 )

Eccentricity of Sicilian people at the table in 22 points , First part

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

I’m late with “English” post, I know but I write too long articles and when I try to translate them I would cry, the original italian version has been written two weeks ago

This post has been inspired by my mother, who once, seeing the bread upside down, scolded me in a peevish way ‘Don’t put the bread upside down!‘
‘But…why?‘
‘Because you mustn’t put it in this way!!!‘
What kind of answer is that? It’s a very sicilian answer, there isn’t a reason, it’s like this all along, it’s not necessary asking it also if it’s a mistery the reason. This episode wasn’t the only one, it was a real mania of my mother and when I discovered the reason I began to observe all strange things at the table of sicilian people. There are many eccentricities but before I sat down at the table plunged in the happy ignorance.

1. Don’t put upside down the bread!. Because it’s the body of Christ. Not because all do it just in this way!, nobody knows the reason nor asks it. And not even because, how my mother answered, trying to gloss over my harassing questions, the sesame seeds fall on the table >_> (here the most wanted bread has the sesame on).

2. Nothing is wasted. Considering that the most wanted bread has the sesame on and considering that the sesame is insidious and moves everywhere and you find the tablecloth seeds covered, considering that the breadsticks are splendor of restaurants and that a sicilian thinks about food 23 hours 24, considering that his/her thought has to be alleviated during the delay of dishes and, this is the most important thing, considering that nothing is wasted, also when there are the breadsticks, all sicilians, inevitably, as if they have a tic, moisten the fingertip and begin to plant it on the little seeds and to eat them, like an eager bird. They nod, talk gritting their teeth and pic, pic, pic fasten the seeds and bring them in their teeth, this is also a system which allows to re-moisten the finger in automatic way, like the self-inking stamps.

3. There is always the bread on the table. Both with one dish and with ten, because as my father said “You put in weight because you eat too and you eat too because you don’t eat the bread (to accompany the other foods, so you don’t satisfy your hunger)“. If you have the belly you know the reason.

4. But there isn’t ever the room-temperature water. There is always the cold water in winter and the water with ice cubes in summer. The expression “ambient temperature” is used only by the gardeners.

5. If it isn’t fried probably it hurts. The grilled food is permitted only during the good feeds in the country or in the terrace or in the balcony or in a street fenced by two cars. The parmigiana with grilled eggplants isn’t even served in the hospital. The fried food is everywhere in Sicily and it’s impossible avoid it. The fried has been under discussion also with my sweet love, the Medlar, who shifted me from the burner saying “You can’t cook!” because I’ve put less one half litre of oil to fry the zucchini for the pasta and I’ve added a drop of water. Since then he cooks and I wander around home into a coma because of fatty acids.

6. Tanto ogghiu unni’ chiange. “Because he doesn’t cry drops of oil”, so it’s useless. In Sicily the olive oil is used to cook the stones too, so it’s very precious. When olive oil pours down, all thirty-five commensals stand up to recover it. Somebody can say because it brings bad luck but actually because it’s very expensive because you buy it from your country neighbour, you don’t buy it at supermarket. Look 7th point.

7. Don’t buy the olive oil at the supermarket! When you are an university student and study far from your home, also the pantry moves with you and with it there is the bottle of fresh olive oil, that one bought from your neighbour, who has the plot adjacent at yours and four olive trees and wanted a kidney in excharge of his genuine oil, but we know that the genuineness costs. The fresh olive oil paradox is that has a cloudy and suspect colour and a poisonous flavour but this oil divides the biomaniac sicilian people, there are those people who wait ONLY the bitter fresh olive oil to eat it with the bread, rigorously made in a country bakery with wood oven, and the people who use ONLY the oil of before year, because it has a reassuring colour and a compatible with human life flavour (me). There is just one thing in common, don’t buy the olive oil at the supermarket, because you don’t know the origin, the olives, when they have been harvested, maybe it’s mixed with motor oil!!!. The bioconspiracy is old hat to sicilians.

8. Rosticceria for breakfast. When you enter in a bar to have the breakfast at 7 o’clock the counters are full of sweets and rosticceria, baked but above all fried food, for example arancine, it’s normal. I think that it was normal in Italy and not only in Sicily. I changed idea after my visit at Vatican Museums.
Once I visited Vatican Museums and considering that they are big my friend Andrea suggested to bring the packed lunch. After 10 o’clock a sicilian already thinks about the lunch, so at half past eleven you expect the rosticceria ready also at bars of Rome.
Bar number one, only rice salad.
Bar number two, rice salad and sandwiches.
Bar number three, rice salad, sandwiches and pizza.
ME: “Excuse me, are there only these dishes?” (Three full counters)
Barman: “What do you mean?”
ME: “Isn’t there rosticceria?”
B.: “There is the rice salad!”
ME: (Yes, now I put the rice in my pocket!). “No, no, rosticceria, I mean arancine, calzoni (baked closed sandwich)…”(iris with meat were a too advanced level request)
B.: “Calzoni? By this time?” O_O
ME: “But it’s even eleven o’clock!”
SILENCE
B.: “Sorry Miss, we have just this food”
When you go to the museum, you learn many things…

9. Badly made arancine. Talking about Rome I remember the poem written by a roman poet, Trilussa. In this poem he writes that happiness is a little thing, for example for the bee the happiness is a flower.
When you wake up at 7 o’clock to go to lesson and outside it’s cold with eight degrees, when it’s recreation time or come out of university after ten hours, or the break time is arrived and you are tired, sleepy, bored or stressed out, happiness could be near. It’s small, cheap, magic and fried! It’s arancina, that hot oily fatty ball that t’arricria, comforts you, before to buy it and after you have eaten it. Thought, desired, yearned and then finally conquered and eaten, after you see the world in a colorful way, pink like the ham, green like the peas and red like meat sauce. The hash house that disappoints these expectations risks the financial collapse (or a huge 800A (sicilian swear word) written with spray paint on the shop window).

10. Badly called arancine. Arancina is female and I talked about this matter here. Unfortunately the sicilians of western side of island call arancine with a male name and in Sicily there is the Big War for the gender of arancine. Really. When the fight about this matter begins, it lasts for hours, days, weeks. Maybe the argument of the post or the article is the sicilian whale or the UFOs in Sicily or the sicilian whales which use flying saucers, it’s not important, if someone writes arancina or arancino in a comment, all following comments are just about the gender of arancinA/arancinO. I swear. If you have to ask an arancina and don’t know if it’s the correct name in the correct place, just point your finger at it.

Soon (I hope) the Second part with other eleven points, stay tuned… 🙂

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 😉 )

Arancina is female! About a war for the gender of the most famous rice ball of the world.

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

Sicily is not a quiet island. There are volcanos, earthquakes and…sicilians who argue. In particular the sicilians of western side and the sicilians of eastern one. Palermo is in the vanguard of West and Catania and Messina “command” the East. The disputes are about soccer (clearly), culture and food, even the food’s names. Sicilians are able to fight for a vowel, litterally. Above all they fight about the gender of the most famous rice ball in the world, the arancinA (female name)/arancinO (male name)…from centuries.

In Italy the male names often end with O in the singular and with I in the plural, whereas the female names end with A (singular) and E (plural) in most cases.

Some years ago, to increase my books collection without tears, I printed the tales written by the most famous living sicilian writer Andrea Camilleri “Gli arancini di Montalbano“, free downloaded, printed and stapled decently to not lose three or four diopters and because I don’t like these fake books made by bites and one of these tales is “Gli arancini di Montalbano” indeed.

The story is set during the days near the end of year and the police commissioner Salvo Montalbano reject the invite of his girlfriend Livia to celebrate the last day of the year in France. Salvo is a food lover and a fine expert of sicilian cooking and he wants to stay at home and eat the “arancini” made by his “cammaréra“, maid, Adelina, the mother of two previous offenders, two petty criminals, arrested once no and twice yes by Salvo. One of them is arrested exactly during those days and Salvo tries to help him not for altruism but to eat the arancini.

But the matter about which I wanted to talk wasn’t this. The matter is that every time I thought the title those arancinI drove me mad, with that “I” strident like a nail on the board. How can that happen? This writer is very famous in Italy and his peculiarities are the acuity and writing in sicilian dialect! He writes “vruoccoli” (broccoli) and “vastasi” (rude), so why does he write “arancini”?, arancini is an italian word! it’s a typical sicilian recipe and the correct name is arancinE, female, and not arancinI, male. In that time I thought that and saw that title like a treason, because even I didn’t know about the “ Great War of Arancine“.

But some time after I ‘knew’ Fabbro. I put it between quotes because I talk with Fabbro from 5 years and I never shook his hand. We talk talk talk and talk on Facebook, I from Trapani and he from Messina, I tell him my whimperings and he tells me his bad lucks and we have never meet yet, we don’t want to run the risk of realizing finally that we are two nuisances and decide to not talk anymore. With Fabbro, at least once a year, on the day of Saint Lucia (in western Sicily, Trapani and Palermo, we use to eat fried rice balls and cuccìa, made with wheat, because we cannot eat pasta and bread on that day but, in reality, it’s just the perfect excuse to stuff ourself of prohibited fried food full of millions of calories), I argue because of these blessed arancine. That he calls arancinI. But I call arancinE. But he insists on calling them with the I / O (such as donkeys I would say 😀 ).

In this way I discovered that arancinI isn’t only an italian word but also a sicilian word!

On this question, the gender of rice balls, there is a real war in the island, because Palermo, Trapani and western area of Agrigento call them arancine, with the female name, because they are like small oranges, and in italian orange is “arancia/arance” (female names with A/E in italian language, do you remember?), the eastern part of the island calls these balls arancinI, because in Sicilian dialect orange is (also) ‘aranciu’, arancio, male. This would be wrong in italian language because the male names indicate the tree and not the fruit but in sicilian dialect there isn’t this difference and also the fruit would be male. So, why in italian are these balls called arancini, isn’t it wrong? No, because it’s the directly adaptation from the dialect, but losting the starting concept, it’s like a little orange! Recapitulating : Western Sicily arancine, Italy and Eastern Sicily arancini… only that they make a pyramid, not a ball, in honor of the volcano Etna (and because you can eat them while they open in a more manageable and decent way). Right here the first controversy by Occidentals could be: assuming that the correct name should be masculine because orange is aranciu in dialect, when you make it like a cone, the orange goes to hell, no? Call it Vulcanello (little volcano)! I’m confusing too, imagine the confusion there is in Sicily!

On this subject you find blogs, articles, comments and thousands of “sciarre“, quarrels, because if you decline it in the masculine in Palermo, palermitans are offended (and I attack with a feminist conference that never ends on the matter of the female orange and the shape and golden breading and blabla too) and the historic rivalry between the sicilian capital and the eastern Sicily takes off and continues beyond the scoop of rice.

Unfortunately, the authorship of antediluvian recipe of this milestone of sicilian cooking is unknown, we can’t solve the issue of copyright and hence there is the problem that the inventor is not one but many. The recipe was begun by the Arabs before A.D. 1000 or better once upon a time the emir of Syracuse Ibn at Timnah for which they created the rice timbale seasoned with saffron and enriched with herbs and meat to carry it around during the hunting and then Federico II, another glutton sovereign, came and his court ordered to prepare the timbale with the brilliant fried breading that prevents the breaking of the ball (the right size is that of tennis ball, unless you go to the bar Touring in Palermo where they make arancine “bomb”) and allowed a better preservation during trips around the island. When in the second half of 19th century there was the spread of tomato in the cooking, the sicilian gluttons were definitively ruined and the monsù (from french “Monsieur”), the French chefs serving the Sicilian nobles, to rice and saffron added the sauce with the meat, exactly in the middle, and made the rice ball with surprise, the arancina.

In Sicily there are the classic ones with meat sauce or with butter and ham, typical at Trapani and Palermo, at Messina with pistachios and then also in thousand thousands variants, at Trapani I found that one with seafood and, wandering from town to town, with the boar, with broccoli and salmon. There are also those stuffed of Nutella and covered with sugar and some people think that once the original version of them for Saint Lucia was sweet, but today they are considered a heresy and simply inedible.

Perhaps it would be more correct to call them with I because the name is in dialect, but I have trained all my friends of the continent to use the female version because it is a small orange and who cares if the orange in dialect is an aranciu. Because eating an arancina is a voluptuous experience, it’s warm and round, squeaks when you bite it, that feeling that gives you is a little shock to the senses, with the sense of smell, with tongue and thought you get to that fragrant rice with saffron, pasted with starch but with distinct grains, and then arrive to filling, in an almost orgasmic satisfaction that continues in subsequent bites, where stuffing, rice and breading remain separate but in the same mouthful and there aren’t many dishes that give you an alike satisfaction. Do you want to call this magnificence with a male name? It’s hard.

At the end I like the female arancina, maybe, probably, is the habit but I like that fuller and langer sound that ends with A, that we italians pronounce with the open mouth, as we had to show the throat to the doctor, arancina reminds me of the fullness and the softness of woman, her body, her breasts, I can’t called it in another way, the “womanliness” becomes it more.

I don’t know how you should call it for not being lynched on the public way, certainly if you take the field to discuss it you become old and won’t solve the centenary question but in the end the most important thing is eating and enjoying it, maybe if you have time you can do it, in the variations that you prefer, as the famous Adelina did, who uses a different recipe here, perhaps because she’s from Agrigento, I tried to translate it from sicilian dialect:

“Adelina spent two days to prepare them. She knew, from memory, the recipe. The day before you make an “aggrassato”, a stew, of beef and pork in equal parts, that must cook in a slow fire for hours and hours with onion, tomatoes, celery, parsley and basil. The next day you prepare a risotto, what they call “alla milanese” (without saffron, for Heaven’s sake!), it is poured on top of a table, knead with the eggs and let cool. Meanwhile you cook peas, make a sauce, reduce in small pieces some slices of salami and make a whole, grinded by mezzaluna knife (no blender, please). The sauce with meat is blended with risotto. At this point you take some risotto, set it in the palm of a hand made like a bowl and put in spoonful of compost and cover it with other rice to form a nice ball. Each ball rolls in flour, then it’s passed into the albumen and bread crumb. After, all arancini are fried in a pot full of hot oil until they change color, like old gold. They let drain on paper. And in the end, thanking God, you eat.” AMEN.

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 partecipate to cooking workshops write to granveliero@gmail.com

Cloudy salt pans. Story of two lovers who haven’t time to go to beach…fortunately there is Calcara salt pan!

Se vuoi leggerlo in ITALIANO ecco qui.

If you have a relashionship with a man who works with tourists in a seaside resort, summer doesn’t exist! There aren’t holidays to melt yourself in the beach, your brain doesn’t evaporate while you read Cosmopolitan and there aren’t embarrassing situations in front of kids in beach….but the wrinkles by suntan are a problem only for your friends 3:D

In summer my relashioship with Giovanni becomes a sequence of (very) little romantic escapes, like in a clandestine love story the instant is fundamental, Latins said “Carpe diem“, the tiny “diem” in which the world forgets Giovanni’s mobile number, two fast little hours, during which people are with beautician, at tennis training or at beach with a friend and you, poor lover, very busy girl of which a fleeting thought slips into the realization of her impossible summer love, get that all desired phone call “I’m free until 19.00!“.

“HURRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH finally we go to beach!!!!”

Finally we can behave like a normal boyfriend and a normal girlfriend among unknown tan experts who don’t want anything for this summer because their cabana has been reserved ten months ago and their oily shaved eyebrows snub your worm skin.

I take out the swimsuit from mothballs, spread three litres of sun cream (kids protection), introduce the beach towel in the backpack, after a search of two hours because it was lost in a forgotten place, like a stupid I think “Hurraaaahhh we are going to the beach, finally we are going to the beach, hurrah! We won’t look like cadavers, hurrah, will I remember how to do it?”

HURRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH

It’s in this moment that my boyfriend goes into a coma and recovers energies lost in the first terrible week of August and hours pass.

Dang! And the sea??????

Every adult knows that when kids are disappointed you MUST REMEDY, there’s no excuse. So we decide to run to Calcara salt pans in one hour and half.

Ok!

Also because the lights after 5 p.m. change and among water, salt, flamingos and sparkle it’s a very romantic little escape. So let’s go fast, direction Nubia up to Calcara salt pan gate. Once you can enter, now no longer, but Marruggio is our friend and so we can do it (it’s not indifference, it’s male confidence in the friendship 😀 )

And indeed when we’re surprised they say to go back, the entrance is forbidden, WWF ordered it. Optimistic guy goes back by car and I take some pictures easy and without ringing mobiles near. Only pools and water. Silence.
…

.
.
.
Silence Sparkle Soil Sun
…

.
.
.
.
Silence
.
.
.
.
.

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
But silence becomes to make a noise. The water isn’t all fixed in the pools, there is a little salty river from the sea, where there are those few strange plants, green blots among salt and red soil desert. The water flowing is so soft that you can hear it barely but under the small waves the river is alive and something, maybe a fish, scares you with its sudden spurt, but you can see just the circles. It’ s the place or the moment or both in which you think nothing.

You just see.

You see and listen.

And enjoy it without thinking.

You feel it

Now birds let their voice be heard, desert is their and their calls are different, strange, they’re similar to a dialog, a tit for tat, not all toghether, maybe because here the Nature is free to express itself. During the breaks of this dialog I hear almost ant steps. Again, I want Nature once again, I want peace just one more time. It’s the time to walk along the thin walleds between pools.

A little way full of unknown plants and water everywhere, by now I’m here and there’s no going back, so I continue the walk among clouds mirrored in the water and pick up shells under webs.

Here the human presence is far, there are some turists, in the usual big main way, that one seems authorized. I don’t know if I can walk along this wall, simply nobody says me no and for now I enjoy the light desert, where ever and anon I see an abandoned thing, a wheel barrow, the salt harvest is beginning but not today.

In this moment my prince charming arrives and fortunately he doesn’t think “She’s totally fool” seeing me during this strange walking.

Toghether we jump from a wall to another, staying away, for this time, the familiar wind-mill, going around it to see it in a different way, watching the “ammucciati” (hidden) sides, up to a tiny beach, there is also a beach in the salt pan, low shores of martian soil, incrusted with salt and wetted by terrestrial water. The little black fishes swim near the shore without fear of you, you are big but don’t exist for them.

In the end you arrive here, the desert changes, from hot red to “ice” white that burns, makes your skin like leather mirroring a thousand of suns and blind you but the oasis, near and far in the same time, doesn’t realize it and squads of flamingos lift orderly.

By now we are in the main way frequented by turists. One hour and half is past.

Also in the salt pan there are flowers!!!!! 🙂

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 partecipate to cooking workshops write to granveliero@gmail.com

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