Okay, so, Catania, day five. The plan is: we have breakfast and coffee together, then my fiancé and I take a walk around the nearby squares while my sister and her boyfriend visit what we had already seen the day before (fishmarket, Saint Agatha's Church, climbing to the dome...). After that, the beach, an evening out in the city and tomorrow we head to Palermo.
My first sweet breakfast in Sicily. I finally tried cannolo. And I can tell you, it was really good, a slightly less sweet version of the Serbian princes doughnut. And crunchier! I really liked it. We had breakfast at La Caffetteria del Fortino, right next to the Garibaldi Gate. We already felt like locals there, because we had bought arancini from them two days earlier. And their coffee was excellent too!
After breakfast, we continued along that street towards the city, when another building caught our attention on the right, a church on a rather quiet little street. We cautiously approached to see if it was even open to visitors, and we were greeted by a lovely lady who explained to us where we were.
This is the Church of Santa Maria dell’Aiuto, built sometime after the devastating earthquake, in the 17th century. Inside, there is a slightly smaller replica of the Holy House of Loreto.
In front of the entrance, on the right side, I took a photo of this. It reminded me of our Cyrillic letter Ž, Ж.
It also had some kind of Byzantine Empire vibe to me.
I haven't looked into what it is, so if there's anyone who knows, I'd love to hear what it's about. :)
Modern historians and archaeologists have found documents revealing an equally fascinating story. The stones from the Virgin Mary's house were transported from Nazareth to the Italian town of Loreto by a Byzantine noble family called Angelos. They say that the family saved the house from destruction and transported it to Italy by ship as part of their daughter's dowry. Since that was their family name, the legend of the flying house carried on the wings of angels easily took root in tradition and popular devotion.
It was good, but I have to point out that the one from Levante was twice better. Or maybe it was just because of the flavors I tried.
Here I had to take a photo of this market stall. What is this, a huge zucchini, a cucumber? Is this even edible? xD
It looks like some kind of decorative long gourd. We wanted to buy one later on our way back, but of course, we forgot.
Completely unexpectedly, with gelato in our hands, we ended up in some kind of semi-open passage right in the city center, where these carriage exhibits were displayed. I'm not even sure exactly where we ended up, it was one of those buildings around the u' Liotru.
Aren't these carriages beautiful? I mean, I get that it must have been uncomfortable to ride in them all day, or even for days, back then, but nowadays, going for a tourist ride in one, wouldn't that be cool? But exactly in ones like these, they remind me of the carriages from Disney's Cinderella.
And once again, of course -> carretto siciliano, one of the main symbols of Sicily. I wrote about this in one of my previous blogs.
Ahahaha, there was a funny scene here. I'll try to give you a glimpse. I was waiting downstairs while my fiancé went to see what this was and what was inside. Not even a minute later, I started walking up the stairs towards the entrance, and just as I was about to peek my head in, there he was like: "Run, run!"
He had asked how much the ticket was, and the woman told him something like €18 per person and he was like “Let me see with my group” - polite words for, “Haha, nope. We've had enough sightseeing anyway. Bye! xD”
and there I was at the door like: "Hey, here's the group." xD
Then I bought some fried seafood that I really wanted to try, along with a couple of interesting fizzy drinks and we headed towards La Playa.
To be continued.. <3 Thank you for reading.
And here are links to the previous blogs if you'd like to read about our little Sicilian adventure from the very beginning. (:
@bibana/sicilyyyyyyy-our-first-two-days@bibana/fish-arancini-an-elephant-and@bibana/cathedral-of-saint-agatha-ancient@bibana/dinner-at-l-iska-gelato
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