April 18-20, 2018 - Ragusa, Sicily


As we mentioned in a previous post, we got to go to Sicily for 6 days, partly to meet with MEDU folks and partly to see a bit of the countryside.  As the MEDU office is in Ragusa, we spent three nights there.  It is a beautiful city set on the top of a sloping plateau and surrounded by steep ravines.  The red indicator on the map below shows where our apartment was.  It is a maze of very narrow roads almost all paved with white travertine.   The area circled in red is separated from the rest of the city by a ravine, and it is called the Ibla.  It is the old, historic part of town.  The picture above shows Hannah looking out over the Ibla. It is quite enchanting.




The picture above shows Hannah looking down at the Ibla from up near our apartment.


Sicilian hot cocoa and pastries were a must, right off the bat! Mark has talked about the thick hot chocolate he had in Italy on his mission. We found some in Sicily! It is slightly thicker than pudding and sooo good!  The cafe also had its requisite group of older, Sicilian men chatting up a storm.




The narrow, travertine-paved streets were fun to explore!






We enjoyed the colorful buildings and (after being in Rome) the noticeable lack of omni-present graffiti.






Ragusa, like most of Italy, has a ton of Catholic churches.  In Sicily, though, they all seem to have much whiter and brighter interiors than we have seen in Rome.




The narrow streets make parking an interesting puzzle to solve.  We were very glad to not have a car during our time in Ragusa.






Hannah didn't love all the walking we had to do in Ragusa, particularly since everything is on a hill and what goes down must come up.  We told her she was acting like a ball and chain, so we took this picture.


We found a lovely studio apartment on Airbnb for a very reasonable price.  It used to be a donkey stable.  We thought it was fantastic!



The figure above is the symbol of Sicily, and it is ubiquitous.


 The old architecture and architectural details in Ragusa really make the city beautiful and interestingly unique.The area is known for the bulbous iron railings.




Flowers seemed to be sprouting everwhere!






Even the feral cats are photogenic.  This one led Heather and Hannah on a wild goose chase through ruins and ancient winding paths, up mossy stairs, to some abandoned old homes, with doors and postal slots still intact, but no roofing.










They didn't account for the width of the cars when they built their homes along the donkey paths of the Ibla.


 A stop for a granita (a semi-frozen liquid, common in Sicily) was certainly in order.


The park at the end of the Ibla was spectacular!




We even stumbled upon the ancient goddess pictured below.










We let ourselves get "lost" among the tiny, winding paths on the way back from the Ibla to our apartment.  It was enchanting to wander through the old town.










Capping it all off with a delicious Sicilian meal was fantastic!



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