My Last Weekend in Catania

Well it is all finally coming to a close, this was our last weekend in Sicily. After the craziness of the Spanish Tour last week it was time to slow down a bit and relax.

Jason and Christie's friend Marnie and her mother Judy arrived in Catania by train Thursday night and plan to stay with us for a week. Brandon and Matt are in Finland and arrive back here on Monday so we were able to use their car in their absence.

With the two car set up for a few days, it gave Laurie and I a chance to be alone and get reacquainted.

Friday at a Lido in Aci Trezza

To start our latest attempt to recharge our batteries, we spent a day at this Lido basking in the warm sun and bathing in the Ionian Sea to cool off. It was a day well spent! 

Saturday Morning

We got up bright and early and drove to the fish/meat/fruit/vegetable market near the Duomo in Catania. Laurie had not been there on her first trip and I thought she would enjoy the assault on all of her senses.

She loves her olives!

Catania's Piazza Duomo

We'll refer back to this picture a bit later in this post.

Inside Catania's Duomo

Dragons...where's St. George when you need him?

Laurie also loves Holy Water Founts

Back at the Market

Yet Another Street Market

Sometimes you just HAVE to give in to your basest culinary desires.

Padre Pio, HUGE in Italy, just ask any Nun

Well, there's St. George hard at work after all!

The things you can do with marble!

Catania must be the Wedding Capital of the World

At a nice stop, not McDonald's, for some refreshing granite and brioche

We even saw police on horseback,

WHAT A DAY!

The 1943 Sicily World War II Invasion Museum

I went here alone my first weekend in Catania back in January. This time going with Laurie was much more interesting as I now have visited most of the cities on Siciliy where this action took place. It made it even more sobering now that I know the serenity and beauty of these sights.

I'd love to get my hands on one of these Invasion guide books to Sicily.

Battle scenes from Catania

The Elephant Survived Too!

This picture was taken in Motta San Anastasia where I've been to Sunday Mass.

More from Catania

Catania's Piazza Duomo in 1943

Now refer back to the earlier picture of the Duomo today, hard to believe.

War Propaganda always interests me regardless of the country producing it.

Wild Grapes

As we walked to Al Tubo's for dinner Saturday, we hit the glass recycling bin at the end of the street that was over flowing with empty wine bottles. I wonder if that is why these wild grapes are growing just behind the bin?

Laurie's Pizza at Al Tubo's

No meat but it did have peas and hard boiled eggs amongst a variety of veggies... YUM!

In Aci Trezza they had a Sting Concert being projected onto the wall of a hotel, they had a good sound system too!

Sunday at the beach in Giardini Naxos

Laurie enjoying her first "Beach Masagee by Linda"

Linda herself putting the finishing touches on my "Masagee" 

This is Linda's third year working the beach scene. She goes back to China during the winter and then starts the process again.

At 10 Euros a "Masagee", a BARGAIN as far as Jim and I are concerned, I think she is doing just fine.

It was very crowded this Sunday

It was actually easier to find a parking space than I imagined. We have always gone here on weekdays when the crowds are small and only about 10% of these lounges are being used, not so on a Sunday in July!

Next Stop, Taormina for Gelato

The back of any empty church is a good place for the locals to gab and escape the heat.

Dinner at the Rosa dei Mari ristorante in Aci Castello

A very nice open air ristorante that served us good pasta, spaghetti al nero for me of course, and solid Milanese cutlet and grilled swordfish as well.

The hardest part of coaching in Catania has been the separation from my bride Laurie for such a long period of time since flying out last January. It's been great to be with her and to have this time alone together for the last four days.

Milan, The Fashion Capital of Italy

As you probably know, Milan is one of the greatest cities in the world when it comes to design and fashion. Every year millions of Euros are spent preparing the new lines for the upcoming seasons.

As I write this, Milan is already hard at work on NEXT year's summer fashion lines.

What you may not know however is that Milan will regularly send fashion models out into the streets of cities like Catania to see how their experimental ideas for the season down the road will be received by the buying public.

Here are two examples of Milan's experimental designs for Summer 2009 that Laurie and I saw yesterday in the fish market and Duomo areas.

For Men

Traditional but still trendy! How do the fashion houses of Milan keep improving on sartorial splendor year after year?

For Women

SMASHING!!!

Heather Linderman Ad of the Day

Every Sicilian Farmacia is adamant in it's resolve to wipe cellulite from the face of the earth. If we stay united on this critical health issue we can not be defeated!!!

I wonder if they are holding a golf tournament to raise Euros for cellulite research. If they are, I'd like to play in it to do my small part.

Sagrada Familia and other Antoni Gaudi Works

Our second day in Barcelona started bright and early again as I had to drive Joe to the airport at 7:00 a.m. to catch his flight to Amsterdam. The good side effect of this is that by the time I got back to the hotel Laurie was showered, dressed and ready to go. This meant we could get another round of cafe con leche and croissants before we beat both the crowds and the heat!

Garmin Comes Through!

Just when you want to kill Garmin she comes through with a big surprise. In Spain, they actually have radar cameras that give tickets to speeders. In Italy speeding is encouraged so this type of technology is unnecessary.

Driving all over Spain, Garmin would start beeping faster and more loudly as we got closer to the camera and the normally green strip at the top of the screen turned red.

GREAT FEATURE that I didn't even know we had!!!

Sagrada Familia

The view from the Nativity Facade

The first time I heard about this church was during NBC's Today Show's live coverage of the 1992 Barcelona Summer Olympics. It is an interesting work in progress to say the least.

Antoni Gaudi (1852-1926) was an architect and a Barcelona native who built several wild looking buildings throughout the city. The Sagrada Familia is an as of yet still unfinished church that he started constructing in 1883 and worked on until his death 43 years later. Even today they think it will take FIFTY more years to complete! The construction is based entirely on private donations and entry fees.

To say that the side in this picture is bizarre is to not do it justice. I really liked it the closer we got and the more of the detail became apparent. Also the audio-guide was extremely informative and answered many of my questions as to what Gaudi and the architects after him hoped to accomplish.

Laurie loved the snails crawling down the walls.

She also liked the geckos.

This entrance is on the opposite side of the church from the previous pictures and is called the Passion Facade.

The story of Christ's Passion is portrayed in an S shaped pattern on this facade. This side of the church has been executed by a modern day architect, Josep Maria Subirachs.

Christ's hair on the cross is an open bible symbolizing the Word of God.

The Grid of Numbers and the Judas Kiss

Christ was 33 years old when He died. The numbers grid you see here adds up to 33 any way you want to add up any line of four numbers.

Christ Being Scourged

Thinking about being scourged.

The Construction Zone

The Nave of the church is where about 70% the construction is being staged. It is alive with activity.

The huge stained glass windows cast beautiful rays of light onto the workers. 

These red windows signify morning and the rebirth of Christ.

An artisan hard at work in the Nave.

Think about this for a second, the odds are that this man will not be around when this church is finally finished in about 2058 about 175 years after construction began. Very few of the current tradesmen will be there to see it's completion.

This is the way churches were built in the Gothic period. Churches all over Europe that we visit today in their completed form also took lifetimes to complete.

The sight of this man working away in the July heat made me really appreciate what was occurring in front of my eyes.

Meanwhile, back on the Nativity Facade.

We decided to pay the 2 Euros each to take the elevator up to the top to get a better look at the spires. We also got a great view of the city to boot.

All the terrific architecture in Barcelona really excited me!

A Dove on the Tree of Life

Gaudi loved nature as well as his Catholic religion once saying "Nothing is invented, it is written in nature." This love of nature is very apparent on the Glory Facade.

The Glory Facade

Note how every spire is topped by a fruit.

I like these red berries, very summery!

And even more fruits

Elevator up but you must walk all the way down a very narrow staircase.

There are many open spaces allowing air in and claustraphobia out.

In the museum at the end of our visit we found his diagram showing us just some of the ways to come up with 33 on the numbers grid we saw earlier on the Passion Facade.

Sagrada Familia Through the Years

The 1926 photo shows the state of the construction at the time of Gaudi's death

The 1935 photo shows the church at the start of the bloody Spanish Civil War.

Someday this beautiful pulpit that Gaudi intended for Sagrada Familia will be in the church although Catholic priests no longer speak from pulpits.

Gaudi's Casa Batllo

Part of the Block of Discord on the Passeig de Gracia, the tile roof is a dragon as Gaudi was basing this structure on St. George.  

Brian FitzGerald would love the Casa Batllo's skull-like balconies.

After a hard morning of sightseeing it was time for nourishment.

Even the taps in this restaurant looked like the Sagrada Familia's spires.

Did I mention that my father-in-law, Bill Gardner, was a Rotarian?

Our final view of Barcelona on the way to the airport.

We LOVED Barcelona in particular and Spain in general. The fact that they speak Spanish was a big plus for me.

We found Spain to be friendly, open and beautiful. We both want to come back and spend much more time visiting the land of my maternal grandparents.

Next time I'm Running with the Bulls!

Barcelona, Day 1

Barcelona is Spanish for ALIVE! 

We arrived at about 1:00 p.m. and after getting our hotel rooms, made our way to the Plaça de Catalunya on a 20 minute train ride. We decided to spend most of our time in the Old City.

Our two part focal points were Las Ramblas, the huge people watching pedestrian street that runs from the Plaça de Catalunya down to the harbor and the nearby Barri Gotic or Gothic Quarter.

The love their heroines in Barcelona

This one is in Placa de Catalunya and was the first one we saw as we popped out of the underground train station.

We decided to attack the Barri Gotic first.

This fountain was once a freestanding well that served as the last watering stop before you left Barcelona until the 17th Century.

Camarillo's Hap Rapp Track Meet and the Vietnam War

It is a little known fact that Camarillo's Annual Hap Rapp Track Meet for school kid's up to the 8th grade had to be moved in 1969 to Barcelona for fear of terrorist attack during the frenzy of the Vietnam War protests.

Here, in this 1969 archive photo, we see the FitzGerald brothers toeing the line for the 100 yard dash in Barcelona. Tom, on the left, is in the 5th grade, and Brian is in the 7th grade already experimenting with cutting edge starting techniques.

This St. Pius X in The Catedral de Barcelona for those of you keeping score.

I took his name at my Confirmation and so did our son Michael.

The Catedral's finely carved 15th Century Choir

I have found that they love St. George all over Europe.

Santa Clara on the far left, St. Catherine in the middle and Catania's own St. Agatha on the top right.

Bottom right saint didn't ring a bell.

A close up look of the Choir carvings

The Catedral's Cloister.

The Cloister's Guard Geese

The patron saint of Barcelona is St. Eulalia, who at the age of 13, was tortured 13 times by the Romans for her faith before finally being crucified on an X-shaped cross.

Years later, the monks inhabiting the Catedral had 13 geese in St. Eulalia's honor patrol the Cloister. If anyone entered they would start honking thus alerting the monks of impending danger. They still have 13 on patrol to this day and nobody has stolen the Catedral yet!.

The disturbing Placa Sant Felip Neri

This quaint little square now serves as a playground for young children like you see here.

The disturbing part is that all the pock marks you see on the church's walls were caused by bomb damage from the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's.

As I've traveled throughout Europe I keep being sobered up by the fact that all this beauty has also been the scene of some of mankind's worst moments.

 

Las Ramblas

This one mile walk is heaven on earth for people watchers and I must admit that there is something about Spanish women that I really like.

Tapas, Tapas, Tapas...

Barcelona is famed for their tapas bars, who were we to argue.

We stepped into the Taverna Basca Irati to try out their menu of over 40 different tapas seen on the bar here.

Here you grab a plate and serve yourself on the honor system. How do they know what you owe?

By the toothpicks

They gave us this one plate for the three of us and we had at it. The honor system part of this bargain was that each tapas was skewered with a toothpick and that we would not throw away a toothpick, instead leaving them on our plate to be counted when we were ready to leave.

Looks like we ate 17 items between us and were they ever delicious!

Dessert

After the tapas, you just have to try some local desserts don't you?

The Art Noveau Escriba Cafe, opened in 1820, worked for us with a great selection of chocolates and pastries.

La Boqueria

This produce and meat market has everything you could want and then some.

Is this a fruit stand or a work of art?

After another long and exciting day, we made our way back to the hotel via train. Our first day in Barcelona was everything we expected it to be.

Barcelona is a very vibrant city that I would rank right up there with Prague as one of my two favorite cities in Europe to date.