It is now 3 months that we have embarked on the long journey of training.
We have chosen the most complete and the most difficult, because things are either done well or not done at all.
And so from October, except for the Christmas period, almost every weekend we dress up as “little” explorers and leave with the certainty of returning home “destroyed” but immensely enriched.
Backpacks always half made, increasingly worn boots keep company with the accumulated kilometers and experiences that surprise us more and more each time.
Yes, because who would have thought that eastern Sicily has so many enchanting places, in addition to Etna ??
Now, if we were to play a game, I’d ask you to name the ones that come to your mind. And I am very sure that I would be able to surprise you with words, stories and names that are unknown yet worthy of the same fame as the others.
Or I would be able to show you a different itinerary also for places usually frequented by summer crowds.
We were confident that this course would provide us with countless valuable tools to enrich our work, but we didn’t expect it to thrill us that much.
Day after day, path after path, we are absorbing the stories of the past times of our island like sponges, reinforcing the awareness that only accompanied by those who love, know these places and manage to recreate their original atmosphere, it is easy to enjoy and understand their beauty. . .. They are the ones who allow us to relive those places at a time when they were modern: imagining eating drowned cabbage sitting in very long peasant tables, in the Middle Ages, when April 25 was still the feast of San Lucio…
Or in a circle, inside the Tonnara of Vendicari, singing the characteristic lullabies that punctuated the work of the “tonnaroti”.
But also when the feet trample on Byzantine tiles among the rocks of Rocca Novara, or trying to avoid crushing a perfectly preserved fossil among the thousand on the path to Rossomanno, or when the eyes are captured by the glitter of a huge chalk rock dating back to the Messinian, the period in which the Mediterranean was little more than a dried-up pond dominated by the whims of the Strait of Gibraltar. And then, turning towards the castle of Grassuliato, smile as you listen to its latest renovation by Frederick II, who cared about the comfort of his mistress.
Or even climbing inside the many prehistoric tombs that support not only Pantalica, but an immense territory witnessing incredible cultures lived and traced until the advent of the Greeks. And be surprised how later, many of those places carved into the stone, were used for the tanning of skins and to run a thriving medieval trade.
Cava Ispica, Cavagrande del Cassibile, Castelluccio di Noto, Cava Carosello, Noto Antica, the Valle dei Mulini (water-powered ed.) Of Palazzolo Acreide … the Iblei are giving us the opportunity to sink our roots in history and learn more about our past, in addition to an incredibly flourishing nature, enveloping and generous even in winter.
The Nebrodi, in turn, make themselves beautiful with the springs, the lakes, majestic Turkey oaks, centuries-old oaks, rocks with important names, and that Nordic air from the high mountains that is betrayed only by the roaring passage of groups of the characteristic black pigs that populate those mountains. And from the views around, which invariably end up in the blue of the sea or in the puffing peaks of its volcanoes, which try not to seem too small in the presence of mother Etna that stands out on the other side.
But then, every time, starting or returning in cars full of youth that will soon become colleagues and that make you forget those 15 more years that you carry on your shoulders by sharing laughter, impressions and reviewing improbable botanical or zoological names, the gaze ends. always to look for you. That white tip that also stands out from the center of Sicily. Alive, finally quiet after so much noise, she seems to look at us with condescension and approval, but at the same time always showing herself in all her almost opinionated grandeur and magnetic beauty as if to say “eh, I know … but next Sunday you will come back here, and you know as much as I do that you can’t wait ”.
And almost forcing you to exclaim, invariably, “and wow, Etna, how beautiful you are!”.
