Medieval Festival in Motta Sant'Anastasia

Every year in mid-August, the city of Motta Sant'Anastasia holds a week-long Festa Medioevale. The festivities begin each night around 8:00 and last until well after midnight. Most of Via Vittorio Emanuele is blocked off to automobiles, from Viale C. Caruso to the oldest part of town, where the Motta Tower is located.

We visited on the first Sunday evening of the festival, and got there early for good parking, around 7:00. We still had to park along the side of Viale C. Caruso, which was a bit of a walk with a toddler but much better than it could have been! To pass the time before the festival began, we had dinner at a nearby restaurant, La Donna Fortunata. We go there quite often, and when they aren't very busy the boys are allowed to make their own pizzas in the kitchen. There IS plenty of food provided by vendors at the festival, ranging from traditional Sicilian to Arabic and Andalusian cuisine, but with picky little eaters, Donna Fortunata was the safer bet for us!

The presentation of the court (La Corte) was scheduled to begin at 8:00, but things often run behind schedule here. So, we came out of the restaurant around 8:30 and found ourselves in perfect position to watch the parade! (Please forgive the exceptionally poor quality of the photos; I am terrible with night shots!)

The parade began with actual heralds who blew a (very loud) fanfare.

Super cool costumes, too!

The heralds were followed by the color guard and then an impressive drum line.  Landon was immediately enchanted by the twirling flags..

Next came various medieval characters in full medieval dress....

This group performed lively dances to medieval flute music.

Not the king and queen, I don't think... Obviously an important couple, though!

Possibly a queen or princess, flanked by two knights!

After the parade of characters, the entire procession grouped up just outside the city gate--a big wooden structure erected just for this week. A space was cleared, and each of the performance acts gave a demonstration of their shows.

Our favorite act was Fuochi d'Oriente, a couple that we actually had met the day before while getting espresso in Motta. They combined fire juggling and simply beautiful interpretive dance. My bad photography doesn't capture the spirit of their performance at all! After the demonstration, they immediately performed their full act, and I dropped the camera and just stared with my mouth hanging open!



Fuochi d'Oriente, doing their demonstration act.

We also saw belly dancers, musicians playing medieval war music, and jesters. There were also stage performances, but we didn't stay long enough to see them.

Since Landon had been so impressed by the color guard, and had spotted a few children carrying miniature versions of the flags, we had to go on a flag search. We walked up and down the entire area of the festival twice, before spotting the only two flags left. Which was extremely lucky, since Logan was in on the flag obsession too by this time, and both of them were nearly in tears from flag-coveting and sleepiness!

Two happy boys!

By the time we finally found the flags, it was around 10:30 and the boys were just too exhausted to stay for any longer. But we all enjoyed the festival, and will definitely be going back next year! A medieval festival taking place in a medieval city is a wonderful experience!

Tour of Taormina

Taormina is a city on the eastern coast of Sicily, in the Catania province. It's split into two parts which are connected by a cable lift. The upper portion of the city features a well-preserved Roman amphitheater (still used for premier screenings of films!) and the art district, along with many restaurants and shops. The lower portion is where you'll find the lidos and seaside cafes and bars.

We drove into the upper city and parked in a garage--visitors are not allowed to drive cars within the center of the city, but there are scooters. The parking fee seemed a bit high at 11 euro, but it is based on the number of hours your car is there.

Here we are at the top level of the parking garage. Those stairs lead up into Taormina...they have a free shuttle bus, but the boys were gung-ho about climbing all those stairs!

This is a beautiful little terrace featuring a shrine to the Virgin Mary. Below is a small garden area with palm trees, morning glory flowers, and a row of very old niches that may have contained statues or friezes.

A relatively small Roman amphitheater is in the middle of town, right behind the church of Saint Catarina. Visitors can go in and explore the ruin.

 

The art district of Taormina is full of all sorts of things, from gorgeous antiques (think gilded hand mirrors, silver tea services, candelabras, etc. etc. etc.!) to oil paintings, to handmade jewelry, to specialty culinary items. This is just one of the alleyways completely full of beautiful things. We did not, sadly, bring enough cash for a gilded hand mirror.

The entire city of Taormina is so picturesque, we took over a hundred photos of just streets that we passed by. This is seating for a more upscale restaurant, as you can tell by the table linens and chair covers.

Here is the small garden below the shrine to the Virgin Mary.

Many of the homes and shops in Taormina are painted with bright designs, like this one.

This home also had one of the most interesting balcony gardens we've ever seen!

Yet another quaint restaurant:

We finally got a nice photo together, courtesy of Landon! We're pretty lacking in photos of just the two of us.

We had to get a shot of just how clear and blue the Mediterranean can be. Gorgeous.

These towers in the public gardens were built by Florence Trevelyan for bird-watching. They can't be entered today, though you can walk all around the exterior.

Another photo of the Trevelyan towers.

The Bam Bar - we just loved the name, and the fact that the menu is painted on the exterior walls.

Here is part of the lido strip, taken from right above the sand. The lidos are of course very crowded in August, since it is the Italian holiday month.



Unfortunately, we did not see the main historical attraction of Taormina, the large Roman (or is it Greek?) amphitheater. We are definitely planning another trip soon, with the main objective being the archeological museum and theater ruins!

Catania by Tourist Train

In the Piazza Duomo of Catania, we have frequently walked by a miniature train ride on our way to the market, shops, etc. We've never bothered to stop, as it can give the impression that it is mainly for children, and maybe even limited to the Piazza Duomo itself.

But last week,  the guide approached Landon and Logan and asked if they wanted to ride. Well, of course they did! After being assured that the train would wait until we hit up the bancomat for the necessary euro, we boarded the train.

As we'd expected, the train began to circle the Piazza. Our guide, in Italian and passable English, explained the significance behind the elephant monument--erected from ancient materials in 1736, built in imitation of the Minerva Elephant in Rome, topped with an ancient Egyptian obelisk, and named Liotru. She also gave a brief history of the three rebuildings of the cathedral of Saint Agata.

But then to our surprise, the train trundled right off the piazza and onto a main street! As the traffic swerved around us, we got a crash course in many of the significant structures located in Catania.

Here are a few of the more notable locations we visited.

Teatro Bellini - The Massimo Bellini Theater

Chiesa di San Nicolo l'Arena - The church of San Nicolo is the largest church in Sicily.

The Greco-Roman Theater - A larger amphitheater than the one the boys play inside.

Monument of Cardinal Dusmet. He stands just in front of a wonderful restaurant, La Crocifera.

All in all, it was absolutely worth the price of admission--on this day, it would have been worth it just to sit on the train and catch the breeze. We would definitely recommend taking the train tour if you are pressed for time while exploring Catania. It's only five euro per person, and children are free.

After riding the train, we headed to the Collegiata Pub for pizza.

Summer Stay in NC

The boys and I have just returned from spending several weeks in North Carolina visiting family. Our stay was packed with activities, from my brother's wedding (hurray!) to Tweetsie Railroad. Of course, it wasn't possible for Billy to come with us, having just come off two months of leave for his surgery.

We landed on U.S. soil for the first time in a year in New Jersey, at about 3:00am, via C-17. Since we were the only passengers, along with one other person, Landon and Logan were allowed to sit in the cockpit for a little while! From NJ, we shared a rental car to Bethesda, Maryland, where we met up with Granny and Pop.

We actually arrived on Granny's birthday! Pop tried to keep it a secret from her until he ended up circling Walter Reed for two hours....oops. Guess Google Maps wasn't the most helpful resource in choosing a meeting place! And of course, my Italian cell phone didn't work in the US.

 

 

We visited a donkey on my parents' road, Wilson, many times during our stay. He would get so excited when we got near his pasture! He is VERY loud......

 

Here are a few photos from the Lazy 5 Ranch, where we took a wagon ride and fed many different kinds of animals...by hand. It was a little intimidating, especially the Watusi cattle! But we had an awesome time!

Yep, we really were that close! Giraffes have super long tongues....

Landon's favorite animal to feed....the emu!

We didn't get spit on!

 Aside from the zoo, our other main trip was to Tweetsie Railroad. Landon and Logan had never been, and Charlie and I hadn't been since we were very young, so we were all excited to go. It was the first time Landon and Logan had been on a train of any kind.

The boys, with Uncle Charlie, Aunt Jessica, and Granny!

Tiger faces.

 (The photos from the zoo are on my laptop computer, and we haven't gotten the photos from my brother's wedding yet.)

Our journey home was considerably longer and more difficult than the journey to NC. We were attempting to fly Space-A to Spain or Italy, and we missed six consecutive flights over a week and a half. For some of these attempts, we drove back and forth six hours (one way!) from Granny and Pop's house to Norfolk. For the last few, the boys and I stayed in a motel. Finally, after missing our sixth flight, I decided to rent a car and drive to the terminal in New Jersey instead. We were able to get on a flight to Ramstein, Germany, the next evening. Thank goodness we ran into some friends from Sigonella, because I was having a hard time managing both kids, three carry-on bags, and two suitcases weighing over a hundred pounds together! Cara and Tim were lifesavers!

Then our mini-tour of Germany began....we stayed a night in Vogelweh before having a friend take us to the Kaiserslautern train station the next morning (thank you, Renee!!). From there, we went to Mannheim and then Frankfurt, where we got a flight to Berlin. We stayed a night in Berlin, where we explored our quiet little block and visited the corner supermarket to throw together a light dinner of fruit, bread, and cheese.

Our room in Berlin....somehow the boys were not too tired to wrestle on the bed.

Later, the smell of wurstel (hot sausage, or...hot dogs!) brought us back out to the beer garden below our hotel. Though they appeared to be mostly closed, as the owner was sitting outside with friends and no one was inside, Landon and Logan were served a cute little plate of wurstel, homemade pickles, and buttered bread. We sat and talked with the owner for quite a while about football and travel.

Finally, the next morning, we arrived back home in Catania! As our plane was making the descent, Mt. Etna came into view and Logan yelled, "Look! It's our home!" and both boys yelled and cheered when the plane finally landed. It's nice to be back home!

Infiorata - Festival of Flowers

For our first family outing since Billy's return from Germany, we drove down to the city of Noto in the southeast corner of the island. The Infiorata takes place every last week of May in Noto. Infiorata is a "festival of flowers" featuring beautiful images that artists create from flowers, based on actual paintings they have previously done. The artists work from Friday to dawn on Saturday, and people line up to view the images on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday morning. On Monday evening, all of the flower art is destroyed by children running down the street!

We made it to Noto in the afternoon, and immediately obtained an enormous helicopter balloon and toy machine gun.

The toys at festivals are overpriced, but it was worth the money to see how happy the boys were with their new things!

The streets of centro Noto are lined with impressive palaces, like this one below:

We do not know which palaces belong to which families, but we enjoyed the spectacular architecture! We also visited the cathedral, which had gorgeous murals on the ceiling inside.

We had a delicious light lunch at the Ristorante il Giglio, located right in the Piazza Municipio. We ordered a salciccio piccante pizza, which has large, thinly sliced spicy sausage, and of course a Margherita pizza, which is simply cheese and tomato sauce. It was simple and delicious, and the restaurant makes a refreshing Bellini cocktail as well!

The restaurant is beside a large terrace, where the boys were able to run around and play. As you can see, it was very sunny and bright that day!

After lunch, we watched traditional fencing techniques being demonstrated.

Again, our photos were really washed out by the intense sun of southern Sicily. Sorry! Here is a shot of the street, showing how crowded and popular the festival is, along with some of the stunning baroque architecture found all through Noto.

Finally, here is a photo of the street of flowers. The line was too long for us to stand in with both the boys and a still-healing Billy, but I was able to climb up the bell tower of the cathedral for an aerial view of the flowers. There are many Japanese influences in the artwork.

 

The detail the artists were able to create using flowers is amazing, and the colors were very vivid in person. Here is another photo of the flower artwork taken by Andrea Salerno, found on the official page of the Infiorata.

 

More information on the Infiorata can be found on the Links page of our blog. Noto is a little over an hour from Catania, straight down the A-19 autostrada.

Landstuhl and Burg Nanstein

On Billy's first day after surgery, Logan and I ventured out to explore Burg Nanstein, a medieval castle overlooking the village of Landstuhl, Germany.

 

 

For 3 euros, we got to go inside and explore the whole thing. Only minor necessary improvements for safety, such as the wooden handrails, have been added. We climbed up to the very top, where surprisingly there was a grass courtyard. We explored low rooms with walls of sandstone and dirt floors, and we even went down into the cellars....or dungeons? 

Logan enjoyed finding and pointing out all of the "holes" in the castle.

There is a beautiful view of Landstuhl and Ramstein air base from the castle.

And--we even managed to catch an orb! This was in the first cellar, looking through to the second.

Orb in Burg Nanstein cellar.

From the castle, I decided to walk down into Landstuhl and explore the town with Logan in his stroller before trekking back up the hill to the medical center.

This is a photo I took from nearly halfway up the hill, returning to the medical center. You can barely see the castle on the opposite mountain. It was a hike!

 



The streets were so clean!

I cannot remember how to rotate photos, sorry!

Memorial garden.

My original idea was to have lunch at some sort of typical German restaurant, but it seemed that the Germans were observing riposo that day. I asked a couple of middle-aged ladies if they knew of a good German restaurant open for lunch--it turned out that one of the ladies was indeed German, but from another city, and her companion was Russian. They were struggling to understand each other already, then joined up with Logan and me in search of lunch. I knew only yes and no in German, and absolutely nothing in Russian, and they had only very basic English and no Italian! We walked through the entire village only to find all of the restaurants closed. We had such a great time though, seeing all of the sights and laughing at our language barriers. I ended up going to a supermarket bakery to pick up a couple of rolls and a pretzel to bring back to Billy.

Here are a few more photos of some of the beautiful homes and buildings in Landstuhl. Edited, of course.