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versione italiana
May - June 2002 - Sicily, Italy (Catania
& Aeolian Islands)
Before going to live in Seoul, South Korea, we went to
Valeria's home city of Catania, Sicily.
Her house is on the hills of Mount Etna, the active volcano.
The Etna Volcano is about 3000 metres high and the hills
cover many villages and many miles. We went to the top,
walking around the old crater. In the last few years it
has erupted and Valeria's mother has had to brush off the
ash from the balcony. The lava never usually flows any further
than the first couple of villages.
All
photos by Valeria Lo Iacono & Paul Symonds
The picture above I took on the island of Salina which
is one of the Aeolian Islands, a group
of seven small islands located North East off of the big
island of Sicily. Salina, just like the islands of Vulcano
and Stromboli, are volcanoes which people live on. Salina
though, is a dead volcano, while the other two are still
active. Stromboli erupts all of the time, and, as the
lava flows down only one slope, the villages lay on the
opposite side of the island undisturbed. These islands
have beautiful beaches and great weather. Salina, in particular,
is the island on which the film “Il Postino was
set”. Below (left) is a picture on Salina, the picture
taken from near our hotel. Bottom right is a picture of
myself and Valeria, taken in Catania, Sicily, at an outside
pizzeria. Everyone knows Sicily because of the mafia,
but one can also find beautiful beaches and resorts and
islands.
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Below is a picture also taken on the island of Salina,
where in June, the temperatures were 30 to 35 Celsius. On
one morning, in Catania, I was rudely awakened by a minor
earthquake which registered about 4.0 on the richter scale.
The public transportation is not the best, in Sicily, but
if you like seafood you will be onto a winner.
Sicily has a rich and various history, with its cultural
heritage, reflecting its history. This is due to the fact
that it has been owned by so many nationalities in the past,
such as the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals,
the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Normans, the French and the
Spanish. The last ones, who ruled until the unification
of Italy in 1861, were the Borbons, a Spanish dynasty.
In the picture below, you can see the view
of the Etna from the Greek theatre of Taormina, a picturesque
village near Catania. The main part of this village is
on the top of a hill, and it's mainly in Medieval style,
with some important monuments dating back to the Roman
and the Greek periods. Just at the foot of the village
lies a beautiful beach on the shores of the Mediterranean
Sea.
The volcano in the picture below (right)
is Stromboli, the active volcano which constitutes the
homonymous island. We were staying in the main village,
but also went out on the boat to the other side of the
island to see the eruptions which seem to happen every
10 minutes or so, with lava jumping into the air and over
the side of the volcano. The other side of the volcano
where we stayed is safe from the lava, at least it was
when we were there.
On Salina Island we hired a motorbike which is 3 wheels
and which can sit 2 people side by side. It looks more
like a small car than a motorbike. As I don't usually
drive and with a large drop down into the ocean, I was
nervous driving around the island at first, with Valeria
in the passenger seat - as she nudged me every time I
started driving on the wrong side of the road (as it was
the opposite side to in the UK). After 3 days I was a
pro.
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