Elephants in Ortygia

We went to Ortygia with our cousins and us. We took a train down to Syracuse, then walked slowly over the bridge to Ortygia. When we got over to the entrance of Ortygia, which used to be the old Temple of Apollo.

We sat for awhile, and while we were sitting, we saw two elephants walking down the street. It was really really cool, because there weren't in a big van or anything, there were just a few policeman and they were about five feet away from us. We think that the elephants were walking on the street because they were going to the circus which we saw signs for.

After that, we kept walking down along the Lungomare to get to the Duomo. Lungomare literally means Long Sea, but they use it to mean the long road along the sea. We had a picnic along the way.

We got to the Fountain of Eratusa, which is the name of a driad, who was being mistreated by Neptune, so she dug underground and came up there. This was what allowed Ortygia to thrive when people were attacking them.

Then we walked a bit farther up, to get some Gelato. It was a really cool Duomo because it used to be the Temple of Athena, so you could see the original columns, on the outside and the inside. They had cleaned it recently, so it was really cool that could you see that it was used for about 2000 years. Instead of just drawing a new church design, they kept the old temple and just built on top of it. Then we walked back to train and went back to Catania.

Christmas in Sicily

Buon Natale!

For Christmas Eve, we had for dinner six fishes, although it was the tradition to have seven. We had five in a fish soup, and one eel that was baked in the oven. That day we hung out with our cousins, Nina and Giona who had come down from Milan, while the grownups were going to the market to get the fish for dinner. We slept at our Nonni and Poppi's because it was Christmas Eve.

In the morning, we were allowed to open one present before our parents and cousins came. We had an orange tree on the terrace, and when they came, all our cousins and me and Rogan picked an orange off of our tree. Here is a picture of me and my Nonni getting the orange tree ready for Christmas morning.




Then we had Christmas bread and ate the oranges on our terrace, because it was really warm.

Then we went to church. We came back and opened all the presents. There was a million of them, and everyone was just running around and picking them up. Then when we thought we had opened all of them, there were a lot more. We all had a lot of fun!

The next morning, December 26th, we all decided to go to the beach, because it was warm. We went swimming and made a big sand castle that looked like Mt. Etna, and had underground tunnels in it, to funnel the water from the Mediterrenean.