Italy

Postcards from Sicily:Cherub

Categories About me, Arts, Beautiful Italy, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Only in Sicily, Photography, Sicilian Art, Sicily

This one's dedicated to literally hundreds of neglected dirty cherubs all around Sicily and Italy who are awaiting restoration. They are adorable just the same.

Literary Islands: Giuseppe di Lampedusa

Categories About me, Arts, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Language concerns, Language Concerns, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Literature, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicilian Writers, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess

Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard (Il gattopardo) is my favourite Sicilian novel of all time. The sumptuous world of the Prince of Salina is a precious link to Sicily’s baroque aristocracy. It also inspired one of the best international cinematic productions with the classic 1963 film adaptation directed by Luchino Visconti starring Burt Lancaster as…

Continue reading ➞ Literary Islands: Giuseppe di Lampedusa

Postcards from Sicily: the end of Carnevale …

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Sicilian Art, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily

E viva San Leone … E musica

Categories About me, Arts, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italian Culture, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Only in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

This year I was fortunate enough to get to San Leone’s ‘festa’ at Longi (20th Feb) which I find is generally more traditional and particular then the one celebrated at Sinagra (even if I love them both!) I liked the solemn religiosity and playfulness of Longi’s interpretation of this Saint’s celebration. Not only does the…

Continue reading ➞ E viva San Leone … E musica

The Beauty of Blogging

Categories About me, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Sicily, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

I am constantly surprised by the wonderful people I am meeting and the connections I am making thanks to my blog. Not only do I give my flabby writing muscles a work out but I also seem to be meeting friends and perhaps even will get some paid work out of it. I am even…

Continue reading ➞ The Beauty of Blogging

Literary Islands: Federico De Roberto

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Italian Culture, Italy, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Literature, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess

Frederico De Roberto’s I Vicere’ or The Viceroy’s was another accidental discovery for me, thanks to the Italian’s flare for rich television series period drama. I fell in love with De Roberto’s characters thanks to the screen adaptation I watched a few years ago on the RAI television network in Italy (2007). I was so…

Continue reading ➞ Literary Islands: Federico De Roberto

Postcards from Sicily: Winter road

Categories About me, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Only in Sicily, Photography, Sicily, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

If I were an artist it would be perfect to sketch out these winter landscapes that I see in the countryside.

Blackbird days

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

It’s a bleak time of year here in the mountain villages of the Nebrodi. The intermittent rain and hail is interrupted by tiny specks of sunshine quickly smudged out by the billowing charcoal clouds. The chill makes me want to shut myself up inside. My lips are chapped and my hands are rough and sandpapery…

Continue reading ➞ Blackbird days

Postcards from Sicily: Pupi

Categories Arts, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photography, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian food, Sicilian History, Sicily, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

My son loves knights and dragons. He keeps begging me to buy him one of these marionette puppets, he would be drooling if he saw this big guy. I love the Pupi Siciliani as a form of Sicilian theatre that originated in the 18th Century and retold epic battles and tales of old. It nearly…

Continue reading ➞ Postcards from Sicily: Pupi

Political intrigue in small town Sicily

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italian Politics, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Secluded Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel, Travel Italy, Travel Sicily

Small town life is always insidious, the reality in Sicily is ever more so. Not only do you find everyone knows about everyone else’s business but they have been sticking in their noses for generations and so if you are a newcomer you will be a target for gossip. I’ve been living here for a…

Continue reading ➞ Political intrigue in small town Sicily

Literary Islands: Vitaliano Brancati

Categories About me, Arts, Culture Shock, Italian Culture, Italy, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Literature, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicilian Writers, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel Sicily

I stumbled upon Vitaliano Brancati quite by accident in a bookstore at Messina. I was attracted by the title of one his books, I discovered after he was quite a prolific novelist and later his most famous novel Il Bel Antonio was developed into a movie starring Marcello Mastroianni, which became a classic of Italian…

Continue reading ➞ Literary Islands: Vitaliano Brancati

An Expat’s Open Letter to Babbo Natale

Categories About me, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Uncategorized

    Dear Father Christmas,   As you know every Christmas I experience away from my family and friends is always tinged with guilt and melancholy. Even if the blessings of my children and new friends distract me from dwelling on negativity. Such is the life of an expat.   I don’t particularly want any…

Continue reading ➞ An Expat’s Open Letter to Babbo Natale

Postcards from Sicily: Nativity

Categories About me, Arts, Beautiful Italy, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily

It's that time of year again. Getting into the Christmas spirit with a ceramic nativity from Santo Stefano di Camastra.

The Sicilian art of the incomplete

Categories About me, Authentic Sicily, Beautiful Italy, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Life in Sicily, Living in Sicily, Photo Essay, Photography, Postcards from Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Tastes of Sicily, The truth about Sicily, Travel, Travel Sicily, Uncategorized

It is common in Sicily to see people living in unfinished houses or apartments with exposed bricks, cement and reinforced steel poking out dangerously like rusty modern sculptures on roofs left behind as it to say: ‘I could build a second storey if I feel like it, ora vediamo ...' Yes, the quintessential loitering phrase…

Continue reading ➞ The Sicilian art of the incomplete

Literary Islands: Giovanni Verga

Categories Arts, Beautiful Italy, Cinema, Culture Shock, Expat, Expat experiences, Italy, Language Concerns, Life in Sicily, Literary Islands, Living in Sicily, Sicilian Culture and Traditions, Sicilian History, Sicily, Sicily and Sicilianess, Travel Sicily, Uncategorized

  Most language students who study Italian at university level are familiar with Giovanni Verga as his short stories in the simple realist style are a perfect introduction to Italian Literature as they are easy for first-year students to follow. Verga’s short tale Cavalleria Rusticana was made into an opera libretto which together with the…

Continue reading ➞ Literary Islands: Giovanni Verga