Santa Lucia

Yesterday was the day of Santa Lucia, the patron saint of Syracuse, Sicily. The night was magical, ending with the sky full of fireworks.

Check out the link to learn all about her.






Saint Lucy

Buon Compleanno Alfio!

This past Sunday, Mamma made a big batch of macaroni for the ten of us. Needless to say, we enjoyed every bite. Out of the mouth of Mario Piccolo, “delizioso!”

Mussomeli: il Castello Manfredonico Chiaramontano

Of the 200 fortresses in the entire island of Sicily, indubitably the most inaccessible of all is Mussomeli Castle. A masterpiece of 14th- and 15th-cent. military architecture, it was built by Manfredi III Chiaramonte, one of the four deputies who governed the island during the reign of Queen Mary in the 1370s.
Located some 2 km from the town of Mussomeli, with heights up to 780 metres, it appears as an integral part of a rocky limestone crag that towers in solitary isolation above the countryside of Caltanissetta. Walking through this amazing creation we saw lofty cross-vaulted halls in almost every room and one thing that still stands out in my memory was the "Prison of Death". Here, the condemned were lowered through a trapdoor and drowned. The castle had high step thresholds, so in a chase an invader would trip and fall if they weren’t aware of them. They say that this castle is haunted…