Posts Tagged ‘Sicily’
In which we visit a salt flat
When I thought about going on a food tour of Italy, I thought of wine, and pasta, and seafood, and olives and olive oil. I did not think about salt. And once I knew we were visiting a salt flat, it did not occur to me that our visit to the Saline Culcasi salt flats…
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World War II in Sicily
We spent one night in a renovated vineyard/ “farm stay” hotel that dated from the eighteenth century. The vineyard operated continuously through World War II, when it was abandoned. It was reopened in 2000. When I asked our Sicilian tour leader why it had been abandoned, he shrugged and said “So many possible reasons.” The…
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From the Archives: An Islamic Map for a Christian King
When we last left Sicily, the Roman Republic had taken Siracusa, which became the capital of Roman government in Sicily. The Romans held Sicily for 300 some years. The island was subsequently occupied by the Byzantine empire in 535 CE, Arabs from North Africa in 965 and the Normans in 1060. * Under the Normans,…
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