Showing posts with label Sicily. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sicily. Show all posts

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Sicily and Almonds




I talked already about Trapani and Erice here, so I won't go on about it, just a few pics, because this time my husband came with me, and because I am crazy about almond sweets! I got this one in Erice.


My husband liked Erice, in particular the temple of Venus, the ancient walls (I really like Daedalus' walls!) and the view.


A part from almond sweets there is coral and ceramic to buy in Erice, but I feel a bit funny about buying coral, I asked in the shop if they can fish for coral and they say yes, if you go out and deep enough. I decided to go for the ceramic.


And then something new for me too, one day we took the ferry and went to the island of Favignana. It rarely rains in that place, and guess what! We rented bikes and started touring the island and got drenched! It was quite funny (in retrospective) as there was so much water and not a single place or tree where to take shelter! Pedal pedal we got to a seaside resort with a little bar and walked in, so wet that everybody sitting there looked at us and smiled (or laugh!). And then, after two barley coffees and a beer the cloud moved towards Trapani.


The sun came out and I felt like incy wincy spider, drying up again (well, my hair took a bit longer but at least my dress wasn't see-through anymore!)


Incredible, after the tempest the sky was really blue, and Favignana looked really pretty and shiny!


The rest of the time we stayed in Trapani, and visited the old city centre and the seaside front.


The city centre is small and easy to walk around. I found it interesting how this looks and feel so different from the 'almost pueblo' style of other parts of the city, even the part were where we stayed, which was just a five minutes bus ride to the centre. Here the view from our window...



And here the city centre:






On our last day I really wanted to take home some almond sweets, so I went in this famous patisserie in the city centre (I don't remember the name... Enza???) which they told me was very good.


I did get my sweets, and some marzipan fruit too, once again my husband could not believe how I could queue for 25 minutes just to buy some sweets (and there were only two customers in front of me!) I guess that he doesn't share my obsession for almonds sweets...


He did have cannoli though, and ice cream, and I had granita (mulberry) and more ice cream in a brioche... and basically most of my diet in those 5 day in Sicily consisted of sweets... and I think that I still have about 100 types still to try. That will be another trip :-)!

Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Trapani ed Erice



This was my first taste of Sicily, unfortunately too brief and 'confusing' to make detailed comments or take good photos, but I can only say that it left me wanting to discover more. For now here is:




Above: It feels very North African. Below: Spaghetti alla Norma



Baroque...




But not always...










At the Hotel Moderno, everybody in my party ate fish (apparentely this place is famous for its fish couscous), but I had pasta with pesto alla trapanese (I put here a link from the blog
Io da Grande with the recipe - in Italian). Below: Antipasti, china, and sweet things.







In Erice there is also the Castle of venus, built over a temple where Venus Ericina was worshipped. The legend says that the temple was founded by Aeneas, and the oldest walls were build by the architect Dedalus. Later the Normans did the rest. I thought this to be a very fine place, and the view was amazing, mostly because the weather was uncertain that day and I could not distinguish the sea horizon, which just blended with the sky into a never-ending brush of aquamarine.








Photos by Alessandra Zecchini ©

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails