Visions of Our New Home

Just recently we received an email from Scott, our intrepid contractor, giving us an update.

Hi Diane

Hope you are both well, just wanted to touch base with you.  We have actually paused on your place for a few weeks to get some critical work done before the rains set in.  You have a new roof and terrace floor, and you also have a nice large garage room opened up with walls stripped off.  Bedroom wall is in and plastered.

As soon as we get back onto your place I'll give you a shout and keep you updated.

All the best

Scott

One of the things that I appreciate about Scott is the communication.  He sends us regular updates which keeps me on edge and chomping at the bit to see how everything is coming.  If I could snap my fingers it would be the end of June and we would be packing for our flight to Sicily.

Scott is on the extreme right and his partner Matt is third from the right in the blue shirt.  

Last night I was looking at the  Agenzia Immobiliare My House (realtor) photos of when it was still on the market.  So, here is what Casa Cacciato will likely look like when it is all done and furnished.

We will be keeping the upper cabinets but the sink, stove & oven and little white cabinet will all be replaced by a long wooden countertop, a new double sink and a five burner gas stovetop.

This is our bedroom.  The walls will be painted white and the plaster along the bottom of the wall will be fixed up.  The closet in the corner is a walk-in closet, small but still a walk-in.  And it comes with a safe!  Never had a safe in a house before.

This is the guest bedroom.  Again, it will be painted white.  We figured we would add colour with paintings and some of my photographs.

This is the sitting-room off of the guest bedroom.  We have almost the identical sitting-room off our bedroom as well.  The window on the right is actually part of a door that opens onto a balcony.

This is our street, Cortile Arcuri.  Casa Cacciato is on the extreme left - the grey house with the brown door.  As you can see, the end of the street overlooks the distant hills. 

One Hundred Reasons to Blog4Peace

November 4th is Blog4Peace Day.  I may not have a hundred reasons but here are my thirty reasons to blog for peace.

My dad was one of the most peaceful people I have ever known.

1. We have a responsibility to our children.  The United Nations listed the rights that all children should have.  None of these can be upheld if our children don't live in peace.
2. Our world is greater than just the human race.  When there is no peace we destroy our environment and the environment that supports all other life - plant and animal.
3. The more people who are talking about peace, the more power the words have.
4. When I blog about peace, it reminds me to struggle for peace in every aspect of my life from the smallest interaction to the loudest protest.
5. The simplest idea can become the tidal wave of change tomorrow.
6. I don't want to live in a world in which situations like Darfur are ignored and unknown by most people.
7. I believe that every drop of positive energy that I release into the world dilutes the evil.
8. I believe that all of the money that is spent on war and on the war on drugs could be spent on feeding our hungry, healing our sick, and educating our young.
9. The waves of every gunshot, every bomb explosion, and every war related death washes over us all.  We need to keep ourselves clean of this evil.
10. Just because we have war today, doesn't mean we need to have war tomorrow.  I really believe that the world is becoming a more just place.
11. "When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix
12. I have learned that I don't want hate or anger in my life, and my life includes all that is in this world.
13. I want to live in a world that someone's colour, gender identity, sexual orientation, nationality, culture, passport, or any other characteristic that currently separates people no longer means anything and that we can live without labelling one another.
14. I am proud of both my father and my uncle.  They were both in the army in WWII.  My father never got any farther than England.  He spent his time during the war ironing other soldiers' uniforms for a dollar so that on his days on leave he could travel around England and sit in the peaceful English countryside (the parts that were not being bombed) and sketch.  I have on the wall in my dining room, framed pencil sketches of Salisbury Cathedral, Dover, and Abertillary Wales.  My uncle, my father's oldest brother, did get beyond the English shore.  He was with the Allied Forces that landed in Sicily.  My uncle Rex was, however, a medic.  He spent the war keeping people alive.  He was awarded the Military Medal because he kept two severely wounded men alive for three days in a foxhole in spite of the shells that were raining down around them.  I am very proud that neither my father nor my uncle Rex were responsible for adding to the pain and suffering, that in fact my uncle relieved suffering and my father created beautiful things.    
15. I think that by standing up for others' rights I am standing up for my own as well.
16. "If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other." Mother Teresa
17. If I blog or speak out for peace it helps me confront my own fears.
18. John Lennon touched my heart.
19. Writing this reminds me that there are so many things that I can email my MLA or MP about.
20. Whatever we believe about the creator of the universe - God, Higher Power, Big Bang, Mohammed, the Goddess, or whatever else we believe in - He, She, It, deserves our best efforts to protect it.
21. "Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace." Buddha
22. Not to be trite, but I really believe that the pen is more powerful than the sword, and that the Internet and social media are even more powerful than the pen.  (think Arab Spring).
23. I think if enough people declare world peace then just maybe it might just happen.
24. To celebrate - not just tolerate - every person in this world.
25. I think that all those who love should have the right to marry and that the shape of their genitalia or their chromosomes should have nothing to do with anything.
26. One day, Nick and Miyuki and I were sitting on the beach at Marina di Ravenna and we were approached by a man selling sunglasses, hats and watches.  I apologized and said we hadn't brought any money to the beach.  Instead of just moving off to the next potential customer, he stopped and sang a Bob Marley song to us.  This was his way to spread peace across the beach even though he wasn't making much money that day.
27. For Nick and Miyuki.
28. Because Neil taught me that it is better to live in peace than it is to insist on being right.
29. "Peace cannot be kept by force, it can only be achieved by understanding."  Albert Einstein
30. Laughter can lead us to peace.  Which leads me to my final quote - from the late great George Carlin who taught me the seven dirty words you cannot say on television which my friends and I whispered to each other back and forth in French class (my apologies to Mme Petrovich) - "Fighting for peace is like screwing for virginity."  Let's keep it peaceful.

Peace for my darling girl...

...and my sweet husband.

Ragusa Ibla

Last summer, while we were biding our time waiting for the sale of our new house to go through, Nick and I had the opportunity to visit a few places in Sicily that we hadn't seen before.  We didn't always agree on the destination - usually I wanted to go to the places that were close-by and Nick would more often choose places that were farther away.  I did the driving so Nick often would go along with what I suggested, but there were a couple of places that Nick really wanted to see that were quite far from Cianciana.  One was the Acantara Gorge from the previous post.  Another one was Ragusa Ibla.

Ragusa Ibla lies in the south-east corner of Sicily, below Ragusa Superiore.  The original Ragusa was built on the side of a steep hill.  In 1693, the area was hit with a severe earthquake and the town was destroyed, sliding to the bottom of the hill.  Instead of relocating the town, the townsfolk decided that they would rebuild in the same place.  As most of the rebuilding happened in the 1700s, the town today is filled with wonderful baroque architecture.  Many of the people moved to the upper part of the town - Ragusa Superiore, but some still stayed in the lower part - Ragusa Ibla.  While some of Ragusa Ibla is now falling down, some is still standing and is being maintained beautifully.  A stunning example of this is the Cathedral of San Giorgio.

What I loved most about Ragusa Ibla were the winding, narrow streets that took us to surprising places.  We followed one up a set of stairs and past some lovely old row houses - well kept and striking.  We rounded a corner and found ourselves walking along a narrow path lined with baroque shells.  This wasn't apparent immediately until I put my face up to a couple of the windows and found that the interior of the houses dropped two floors to what had become a grass-strewn yard over the years.  Some of these interiors now had trees growing inside them, yet from the outside it looked like you could knock on the door and someone's nonna would answer and beckon you in for a glass of wine or a cup of espresso.

Enjoy here some of my pictures of the buildings in Ragusa Ibla.

For more information about this stunning corner of Sicily, I would recommend you read Baroque Sicily by Jann Huizenga.  Jann lives in Ragusa Ibla and her blog is full of interesting bits of info and lovely pictures about the area.

Alcantara Gorge

GOLE ALCANTARA

Not far from the resort town of Taormina and the slopes of Mount Etna is a stunning gorge formed by the hundreds of lava flows with which Etna has gifted the surrounding areas.  The walls of the gorge reminded me of my mother's pottery studio - the pile of discarded clay that was thrown on piece by piece until she had created a multi-layered ceramic checkerboard.  These towering walls, amazingly, were home to small cacti growing between the cracks.

Cactus growing on the walls of the gorge.

The gorge, or gole in Italian, has 4 hiking trails.  Nick and I took the shortest one, about 1.5 km.  It was a roasting hot day, when we were there - 38 degrees Celcius.  As we walked along the pathways, I found myself grateful for the shade along the path and also for the occasional 'mister' that sprayed cool water over us.  The path took us to lovely viewpoints that gave us glimpses of the river below.

After a nice lunch, we took the elevator down to the river beach. (Yes, an elevator!).  The edge of the river was filled with people - elderly nonnas with their toddler grandchildren in tow, young German women sunbathing topless, middle-aged British men in baggy shorts, Italian men strutting in speedos with gold chains tangled in their chest hair, and shapely young Italian women with perfect make-up and perfect hair wearing brightly coloured bikinis.  

As we made our way down to the river's edge there was a large sign written in Italian, English, German and Spanish warning us that the river was frigidly cold and we should only spend a few minutes in the water.  I stepped in the water.  While chilly, it was most definitely not frigid.  I grew up on the mountains to the north of downtown Vancouver, Canada.  I spent my summers swimming in the snow run-off in Lynn Canyon.  The water here in the gorge was not so cold.

Nick and I made our way to a little beach in the shade of the tall walls.  While he sat on the beach, I walked against the current as far up the river as I was allowed to go before I hit the river rapids.  The walls of the gorge rose up on each side like the dome of a cathedral.  The only sound was the echo of the rushing of the water.  There was a nearly spiritual feel to the place and I felt my cheeks start to hurt, I was grinning so hard at this amazing experience.  Everyone I passed who was walking the other way in the river had the same grin and was sharing the same experience.

I probably stayed in the water for over an hour.  It was a magical day.  Both Nick and I left feeling that it was an afternoon well spent, although I must admit, I suspect one reason Nick was so pleased with the day had something to do with the topless sunbathers!

Crazy things I never knew about Sicily

I have never been much for using travel guides.  Whenever I have travelled in the past, I have depended on advice from the people I met locally to find the restaurants, hotels, and the most interesting sites.  Nick, on the other hand, would pack every book we owned on Italy if we had space and unlimited luggage weight.  This trip, I managed to keep him down to two books: Top 10 Sicily and the Cadogan guide on Sicily.

While I haven't read a lot of travel guides, I am a reader.  I usually have either a stack of real or virtual books sitting next to my bed waiting for me to read them and this trip was no different with one exception - I didn't bring enough reading material.  After the last of my books were finished, I found myself rummaging around in my husband's suitcase to see if there were any books that I didn't know about.

So, after finding no fiction (I prefer fiction over nonfiction and fantasy over everything else) I picked up Nick's Cadogan guide to Sicily and Top 10 Sicily and started reading.  The Cadogan guide was written by Dana Facaros & Michael Pauls.  I haven't read (to my knowledge) anything else by these two but just from this guide I suspect these two have a terrific sense of humour.  As I read their guide, I kept coming across crazy things about Sicily that I had never heard before and as I did I would turn down the corner of the page so I could find them again and read them to Nick.  So, having compiled my list here is my top 10 countdown of the crazy things I never knew about Sicily.

10. Sicily was under Byzantine rule in the 7th century ruled by Emperor Constans II.  He was the first Emperor to travel to Sicily after the fall of Rome.  He was seriously considering moving the Byzantine capital onto Sicilian territory at Syracusa when a courtier, furious over the slight to Constantinople, approached Constans II in the bath and killed him with a soap dish.

9. Arguably, one of history's most interesting mystic characters was Count Alessandro Cagliostro, born Guiseppe Balsamo in Palermo in 1743.  He became adept at the use of pharmaceuticals and a master at forgery and through these talents scammed and conned his way into the highest of high society throughout western Europe.  His greatest coup as a con man involved convincing a goldsmith that he had discovered a cave on Monte Pellegrino that was full of treasure but guarded by devils who could only be lured away with 60 ounces of gold.  The goldsmith brought the gold to the mountain but the "devils" (Cagliostro's accomplices) came out and beat the poor goldsmith until he ran away and they scarpered with the gold.

8. On the same theme of scam artists in Palermo, this story happened much more recently.  In 2005, a Palermitani couple bilked a poor woman out of 50,000 euros.  How did they do this?  They claimed to be vampires so convincingly that she truly believed that they would come and impregnate her with the Antichrist if she failed to pay up.

7.  Lampedusa is a small, but stunningly beautiful island off the south coast of Sicily.  It is about 20 square kilometres with a population of 4500.  Its industries are fishing, agriculture and tourism.  In 1987, Libya shot two scud missiles at Lampedusa.  Fortunately for the Lampedusians, the aim of the Libyan military was not so great and the missiles fell into the sea. This was apparently in retaliation for the American bombings of Tripoli and Benghazi.  Apparently the Libyans had a map in which the 51st US state was Lampedusa.  (Just kidding).

6. This one actually didn't come from my guidebooks but is one that I had seen on the television show Urban Legends and found later on the Internet.  Starting in January 2004, in the tiny village of Canneto di Caronia, appliances in people's homes would burst into flame without warning.  This moved from appliances to non-electrical things like mattresses and chairs.  The fires became so frequent that the region's fire brigade set up permanent residence in Canneto di Caronia.  People began to leave the town, rather than live under the constant threat of fire.  Other residents believed that it was supernatural in origin and turned to the Church to perform exorcisms.  After a month, the fires began to diminish.  No one has any explanation for the fires.  And to continue on the mystic theme...

5. In Enna, in the absolute centre of Sicily (a.k.a. Umbilicus Sicilae or Sicily's navel), stands the Torre di Federico II.  Other than being in the centre of Sicily, the spot has other significance.  It is the crossroads of ancient Sicily's three main thoroughfares which symbolize the Trinacria found on the Sicilian flag.  The tower, however, is a mystery.  Octagonal in shape, it has no known purpose.  Federico II built the Castel del Monte in Puglia on the mainland which is also octagonal in shape and also has no know purpose.

In the 1960s, historian Umberto Massocco theorized that the spot was the centre of ley lines, similar to the ones found in England.  On these lines can be found a variety of landmarks of historical and spiritual importance: Agrigento, Eraclea Minoa, Syracusa, and numerous others.  His suggestion was that the whole island of Sicily is a large geometrical temple.

4.  Many people know the story of Archimedes running down the street yelling "Eureka", but if you don't, here it is.  Archimedes, also known as the Wizard of Syracuse, was a mathematician and the cousin of Hieron II.  Hieron had commissioned a golden crown to present to the gods at Delphi.  Once the crown was finished, he asked Archimedes to find a way to ensure that the goldsmith had not cheated him and used a cheaper metal on the inside.  While sitting in the bathtube in his home in Syracuse, Archimedes came up with the idea of using displacement to prove if the crown was solid gold or not.  So excited by his discovery, he jumped out of his bath and ran naked down the streets of Syracuse shouting "Eureka!!!"

3. Sicilian history seems to be full of magicians and wizards.  Somerset Maugham wrote a story called "The Magician"which was based on the true-to-life story of Aleister Crowley, originally from Leamington, England.  Crowley was referred to as the Magician of Cefalu'.  Cefalu' is a tourist town with a stunning bay and white glowing beach.  To see this town, one would never guess that it had hosted a cult centred on drugs, sex and black magic.  Crowley established the Abbey of Thelema to hold "rites" that would, he said, be the successor to Christianity.  Crowley referred to himself as "The Beast" and encouraged people to do whatever they pleased, no matter how perverse.  He was famous for his pornographic murals and his book "Diary of a Drug Addict".  Eventually he was thrown out of Italy by Mussolini.  In 1947, on his death, his will requested that he be buried in Cefalu'.  The town of Cefalu' denied his request. (I wonder why?!?)

2. The little village of Villalba is at first glance an ordinary Sicilian village - no particular reason to visit this village over any other except for this.  Near the village is Pizzo di Lauro, a mountain peak.  Rumour has it that the greatest treasure in all the world is hidden on this peak.  According to Facaros and Pauls, this treasure is said to be guarded by fairies living in a palace.  People trying to find the treasure disappear on the mountain and all that can be found of them is the sound of their groans, moaning the following:

Pizzo di Lauro, for your riches
We have lost our lives and our salvation.

And finally, my favourite crazy story about Sicily is...

1. In 1064, the Normans made their first attempt to attack and seize Palermo.  Sadly, they bivouacked up a hill covered with a particular species of tarantula whose bites caused the soldiers to suffer from a very unpleasant attack of painful farts, thus ending their first attack on Palermo.

No one could make this stuff up.  Seriously.

Catch Up Time

Our Sicilian Home

It has been about seven weeks since Nick and I got back from Sicily.  We hit the ground running here and this is the first chance I have had to really do any writing for the blog.  So, those of you waiting for updates on our Sicilian home, my apologies.

August 24^th, after we arrived back in Canada we got the email we were waiting for.  Joe, our terrifically helpful realtor, sent us the word:

I was going to write to you this morning to tell you the good news that we signed the deeds on Thursday afternoon…  Congratulations!   Joe

Celebrating the purchase of our house with Joe our realtor (in the middle)
and Scott our contractor (on the right) the day we left Cianciana.  Nick is on the left.

And then September 6^th we got word from Scott, our equally terrific contractor/renovator saying that the work was underway.  Of course, the path of renovation never runs completely smoothly. 

…there has been a small glitch in that it has rained this week quite heavily and has unveiled that the terrace in front of the kitchen has some severe leaks through to the room below…

and

… we have been having some problems with the neighbour who is complaining that damp rising from the wall between your garage and his kitchen is ruining his kitchen. He would like to put the problem right between you…

Fortunately, the solutions to the problems have proven to be fairly easy and not too expensive – certainly not compared to the glitches we had when we renovated our Canadian house!  The leak was fixed by removing the tiles from the terrazza, laying a waterproof membrane and re-tiling with new tiles.  About 800 euros well spent.

As for the neighbour’s kitchen…our ground floor walls had been covered with a horrible vinyl wall covering that we had wanted to get rid of anyhow. 

Our ground floor.  All of these walls are now down and are stripped back to the stone.

Scott removed all the wall covering and then the render (probably plaster) on top of the stone walls.  What will most likely happen next is to let the walls dry over time and see if this improves the situation with the neighbour’s kitchen.  If not, then there is some treatment that can be done to the stone that will help take care of the damp.  I must say that when Scott emailed us with a “damp problem”, I was a bit terrified.  In Vancouver and on Vancouver Island, “damp” is associated with “leaky condo syndrome”, which frequently costs the owners tens of thousands of dollars.  But the removal of the rendering added only 150 euros to our bill.  With luck, that’s all we will have to do and we will be left with a ground floor that has beautiful exposed stone.

In the meantime, Scott sent us pictures of how the kitchen will look...

...and today we heard that he is removing the asbestos roof from the storage room on the terrazza and replacing it with a new and non-cancer causing roof.

The storage room on our top terrazza.

We picked a new colour and new tiles for the outside of the house.  Before we left Cianciana, we walked around the town and looked at colours and tiles that other people had used.  The house is on a narrow street so we thought a bright colour would be better.

Our house will look like this on the outside.

All in all, work is progressing well and we are counting the days until we land in Sicily again in 274 days (but who’s counting!)

COUNTDOWN TIMER WIDGET