Descriptions of Excursions/Visits
L’antica Bottega dei fratelli Napoli
The theatrical world of the Catania Opera produced its own forms of artistic craftsmanship: puppets, scenes and signs. These artifacts, to be considered among the most significant products of Sicilian folk art, are the constitutive elements of the so-called “craft”, that is the set of all the theatrical equipment that allowed the artists to stage their puppet shows. A visit to the Napoli family’s bottega today will show the only ancient Catania-style craft that has remained intact and complete, which the Puppeteers have used from 1921 to today.
Siracusa
Syracuse is the right place to understand Sicily and to experience the same emotions as the travelers of the eighteenth-century Grand Tour. There are so many experiences to live in one day: we will start with a visit to the archaeological park of Neapolis, an area of 35 hectares which preserves the ancient monuments and which contains many testimonies of the classical city. In an extraordinary environmental context we will visit the Greek theater, from the 5th century AD, still used today for theatrical performances and concerts; the altar of Ierone, the celebratory monument dedicated to Zeus Eleutherios; the Roman amphitheater, from the III-IV century AD; the ear of Dionysius, a large quarry from which stone materials were extracted for the construction of the great monuments of the city. But Syracuse is not only the city of the ancient Greeks, and so we will move to Ortigia, the historic center of the city, built on a small island. There, in a labyrinth of small streets surrounded by the sea, Baroque palaces and splendid churches follow one another. Among all, the Cathedral of Syracuse, in the splendid Piazza Duomo, one of the most beautiful in the city.
Acitrezza
The small seaside villages of Acitrezza and Acicastello, not far from Catania, have always fascinated the great authors of literature of all times. By discovering them, we will discover what the large boulders thrown by the Cyclops Polyphemus against Ulysses have become, as Homer told us; of strolling in the port of Acitrezza, in search of the descendants of the Malavoglia, the novel by Giovanni Verga; and we will look for the glimpses that Luchino Visconti immortalized when he filmed La terra trema there. In Acicastello, then, you can visit the magnificent Norman castle built on a lava cliff overlooking the sea, right where Verga set one of his most mysterious novels.