Majestic Malta and Sizzlin' Sicily

How wonderful it is to be by the sea versus living through tornadoes in Minnesota in May. There's so much history about the Romans, the Normans, the Greeks, the Athenians, the Etruscans, the Carthaginians, etc. in these islands, and the Knights Templar that your mind starts to commingle everything, but that's exactly what happened in historical times. The Knights Templar started off being a very humble group of knights, and they ended up being just as pompous, in my opinion, as the Catholic Church. People in high places back then didn't believe in preserving history as we do today. They demolished ancient temples in order to build their ornate, over adorned cathedrals over the ruins. As apartments buildings are being built today, Roman ampitheathers, temples, catacombs, and more are being discovered, as is also true in Turkey. Unfortunately, there's not enough money to uncover all these previous civilizations on land, not to mention what lies beneath the sea. There is much energy here as ever, as expressed by Mount Etna on Sicily, and we were fortunate to see a small plume of smoke exhale from its mouth.

We zigzagged around the southern and eastern part of Sicily the last few days of the trip, heading first to the Ragusa area, then to stay at a farmhouse amidst olive trees, vineyards, almond trees and lemon groves. I greeted the horses to and from my stable room, if that's what you want to call it, and the main house. The undulating hills around us created an atmosphere we could have luxuriated in for days but we headed off for Mount Etna and the resort town of Taormina , then down to another seeming resort area of Syracuse and the small island of Ortygia.

The hilly landscape on the island of Sicily made for some interesting building configurations. Houses are built into the hills, with staircases leading in every direction to yet another home built on top of each other, but not in any uniform way. It could have felt like a maze if it were not for the major, yet narrow seemingly one-way streets and the pedestrian walkways.

Then there's the gelato and cannoli then we all partook of, so much so that even for me, I did not have a gelato my final day in Sicily. Maybe it was because of the shared experience with our group that was diminishing in size by the day. I have one evening to myself in Catania, the second largest city in Sicily. It's not been well managed as anyone can see by the drab-ness of the area around the Duomo, it's most notable feature.

In my quest to always see everything in my final walk of this trip, I noticed, at first, a few woman carrying roses. The further up the street I walked, the more I saw, so of course I had to go further. Thousands of roses were being sold, in tribute to some saint I presume, for several churches in this area were open with massive numbers of people gathering very loudly inside. We'd heard that from May through August/September, there are many celebrations throughout the towns, most with fireworks, foods, elaborate outside decorations, which include figures being removed from their glass cases inside the church to being lead through a procession of sorts or to stand guard on the streets as the processions pass. It seems each church tries to outdo each other in these celebrations as they do in adorning the interiors of their places of worship.

I look forward to enjoying the simplicity of my home surroundings and my cat Karly for a day or so before heading to our fresh body of Lake Superior water for the weekend.

Happy Memorial Day.