Taormina

We went to Taormina! It was very fun.

First we looked at an amphitheater, were we were going to watch an opera later that night. picture of amphitheater from far away

We went down a funicular and went swimming and then we saw in the water a few fish, and swam pretty far out. There were a few boats and looked at them from in the water. We came out of the water and got dinner at the restaurant by the beach. Then we came back up the funicular, just when the opera was starting. There was a ballet and then there was an opera. We only saw the ballet, because it was very long.

Swimming at Aci Castello

Aci Castello is a town. There is a castle where we swim. It is a cliff so the castle is on top of the cliff, and we swim below the castle. There are a lot of rocks that you can touch, right when you dive in, and there are rocks farther out that you can still touch. Wear goggles and be aware where you are, because you can get lots of cuts on the rocks, like we did. There fish that you can see, black and blue fish, some are the size the minnows, others are twice the size of minnows.

And there are lots of tides pools, filled with sea water, so there is salt on top of the sea water, that dries out. The pools are super hot and white from the salt, Domenica stuck her foot in the salt tide pools.

Mt. Etna Day

We went to Mt. Etna. It was great. At the bottom there was a funicular (cable car) that took us close to the top. We had lunch and then explored around that area. We went up in basically a field of ash, and then got to more rock. Rogan lifted a rock up to feel how heavy it was, and it was very light, even though it was pretty big. Underneath the rock there were a lot of ladybugs.

We were so high up, it was super windy and pretty cold. Mt. Etna was very hilly and you could see the top of the mountain which was steaming, but no lava. I took a few pictures of plants, which were flowering succulents, there about three different kinds of succulents.

The Garden at Agrigento

There was a garden at the temples. We got there right when they were closing the garden. The person who closed the gate to the garden was very nice and let us in. She gave us a tour. There were Fica de India, which translated is 'Fig of India', which were really fruits from a cactus. They were really sweet and seedy, sort of like persimmons with a lot of seeds. It's spiky so you have to peel off the outside skin just like an orange. You eat the seeds.

There were lemon trees, about twelve different kinds of lemons, and about five different kinds of orange trees. There weren't any limes, which was suprprising. She showed us these very long cucumber things that were super super long. They grow them that long because they were growing them for seed. They hung straight down from bamboo things. There was a tomato patch, and a few ripe ones. She let us pick some. They were delicious. There were a few pistachio trees (pis-TAK-chio) and alomnd trees.

There were a few caves, and we climbed in them. They were very early churches. The priest or whatever would preach inside the cave, and the people who wanted to hear the mass would be below the cave, listening. There was a yard of space below for them. The cave was built into the rock, above the yard. It was around the 2nd or the 4th century AD.

Agrigento

We took the bus to Agrigento. It was 2 and a half hours. Then we went to convent there because we thought the nuns made sweets. They were closing, but they let us look around. There were a few people there touring us, then they gave us some sweets that the nuns made. One of them drove us to this old building that he was making into a museum for some paintings. Then we went the temples in Agrigento. It was one of the biggest archealogical sites in Europe. We saw the Temple of Concordia, Hera's Temple, Hephaistos's Temple, Hercules' Temple, Zeus's temple. At Zeus's temple they had stone giants that helped hold the roof up. Now the giants were scattered around the site, except for one close to the site.

St Agatha at the Duomo

St. Agatha at the Duomo

The Duomo is on the piazza off Via Garibaldi. Their main patron saint is Saint Agatha. I think she is a saint because they cut off her breasts and mutilated her stomach, and tried to burn her, and she still lived, for awhile. Then she did die after all of that. Every year they have two celebrations for St. Agatha, one in February and one in August. The February one is bigger. We saw the August one on Monday the 17th. They were carrying around her tomb, and had fireworks, people were dressed up and screaming, as if on the day she died. We had candles and burned them as an offering for St. Agatha. Agatha in Italian is Agata, and there are a lot of signs around that say WSAGATA. We didn't know what that meant, but we found out the W means Viva, because there are two V's connected, and the S stands for saint.

First day in Sicily

August 8th, 2009
Saturday night

We just arrived! We are going to a swordfish festival, the Pesce Spada in Aci Trezza. Here are some pictures! Here we watching them grill the swordfish. This is the best swordfish we've ever had, and the fisrt swordfish we've ever eaten. A very important thing about it was that it had to be 3/8 of an inch thick to grill right and to taste good. It was delicious.