SICILY AT LAST

      No one knows where the name, Sicily, came from, but the island has been central to European history for somewhere around ten thousand years! During almost all of this time, it has been ruled by someone else and fought over almost continuously. Keeping track of all the battles, ethnic cleansing, and atrocities is next to impossible, not to mention sickening. Yet there exists a Sicilian culture that's separate from that of its many conquerors, even Italy. In fact, its language is not just an Italian dialect; it's linguistically different. There's also a Sicilian cuisine that boasts 72 different kinds of bread, lots of specialty ice cream, and (of course) wine.

      So, when visiting Sicily, we should not expect it to be just another part of Italy. We could even have reason to think of it as another part of one of its conquerors: Greece, Turkey, Africa, Spain, France, Germany, England, and even the US in WW II. Perhaps it would be better, though, to think of it as a part of all of these—or none of them—or maybe just a place unique in European history.

      Catania, where we're stopping for two nights, is Sicily's largest city after Palermo. Arriving as we did by plane, we viewed much of eastern Sicily with Mount Etna in the distance, shrouded as usual in clouds. In 1669, it erupted and buried much of the city. Twenty-four years later, a major earthquake destroyed a lot more of it. Here's hoping our stay will be less eventful.

-s-