Customs & Traditions « baroquesicily.com - Sicily Stories and Travel Tips from Jann Huizenga

Welcome Back Sun

March 27, 2015

Sicily, Sunny Sicily, was underwater most of March. I wasn’t here til three days ago, but i knew the moment I set foot in the house; water washed down walls, the floor was ponding.

But there’s a bright new sky today. Lizards slither. Underwear waves on balconies. Palm and olive branches abound.

Sicilians are still swaddled in winter gear.

Though tourists are convinced it’s summer.

Carmelo, my favorite barista in the whole world, is once again serving outdoors. He hasn’t set eyes on Kim for almost a year, and yet he remembered his drink: a doppio, double espresso.

Hope you’re having a great weekend!

Tanti baci della Sicilia,

jann

All Saints Day

November 1, 2013

Today we celebrate saints. The whole nation is on holiday.

For the first time there’s the faintest whiff of fall in the bright blue air.

Sheets flap from every balcony. (On holidays and Sundays electricity is practically free in Italy. So everyone’s done the washing.)

It was a good morning for bumping into amici. I found Salvatore, a 95-year old friend, in a cafe on the piazza. He told me war stories. How his ship was torpedoed. How he was taken prisoner by the British and marched through the Algerian desert without water. How, in his prison camp in Liverpool, the British girls went wild for him. (“They didn’t care for the Romans, Tuscans, or Neapolitans–only Sicilians.”)

I greeted the furniture restorer, the ice cream maker, the baker. I found my friend Sara at the gardens, and she saw her friend Salvo, an artist who took us to his studio, stuffed with a thousand paintings of the Sicilian countryside.

A perfect morning in Sicily.

Tomorrow, November 2, we celebrate departed souls (All Soul’s Day). Children will hunt around the house for gifts left by dead relatives, the cemeteries will be full, and we’ll devour cookies called Bones of the Dead.

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Strong & Passionate (& Loco)

April 4, 2013

Easter is long gone, I know.

But not here in Sicily. After an intense week of processions and candles and dirge-tolling bells and Roman soldiers on horseback and skies aflame with fireworks and Easter lambs and ricotta tarts and cassata cakes, we’re just starting to come to our senses.

Sicilians confirmed, once again, that they’re a strong and passionate people.

And absolutely loco.

In the little village of Ferla, Jesus and Mary wafted out of churches at the opposite ends of town on the shoulders of a dozen hale and hearty Sicilians. The Madonna went uphill; Jesus down. When they got within sight of each other, Jesus broke into a joyful downhill sprint toward Mary.

Twelve pairs of legs were scrambling, centipede-like, to balance his incredible weight while flying downhill. Onlookers gaped just inches away.

I had been casually snapping pictures–la-dee-da–when the stampede began. Aghast, I was–a straniera innocente more or less in their path.

But all is well that ends well, and the morning ended with fireworks streaming through blue skies, tears streaming down cheeks, and kisses & hugs galore.