Baker art at Monterosso Almo

Baker at Monterosso Almo

"Santa" kid

Just thought this a cute outfit ....

Monterosso Almo, Ragusa

On the 26th, DH and I visited Monterosso Almo (Ragusa province) to see the Living Nativity.  Seems like the entire town gets involved.  You wander through quite a few streets looking at various displays of townpeople showing what life was like in the 1600-1800s (or there about) .... cobblers, rope-makers, broom-makers, pottery repair, stonemasons, bakers, cantina and a whole lot more ... ending up at a cave where the Holy Family with Magi and shepherds are placed.  Last year, the infant representing the Child was fussy when we visited the cave; "Mary" was having no success calming the child ... Mom ended up taking the child away and a statue was put in the crib. 
This year our group was one of the first to go through ... so DH and I explored while we waited for the bus to go back home again.  We wandered up to the upper part of town ... this is looking back down on the older section of town where the Nativity is being held.

Holiday lights - Via Roma

Looking down Via Roma during the Santa Lucia festival ...

Santa Lucia is the patron saint for Belpasso.

Her feast-day is 13 December.

She is quite popular in Sicily. 

She is also Syracusa's (south-east corner of the island) patron saint.   Every year Sweden sends a girl to Syracusa to portray Sta. Lucia during the festival in Sta. Lucia's honor.

Unique nativity

Nativity set in a tire at one of Belpasso's annual displays

Haven't seen this for quite some time ...

DH woke me up early this morning to go check out the balcony... it was snowing.. and sticking.

thinking outside the box

Someone had a good idea to paint the normally bland and boring TV antenna and give it some character.  Would have missed seeing this entirely if I hadn't climbed a staircase to look in a shop window while in Taormina.

Taormina

DH, a friend and I took a Sunday drive up to Taormina (on the eastern coast of Sicily about an hour and a half from our apt).  Wonderful little town ... a bit of a resort area. so there are frequently lots of tourists from cruise ships wandering around the town.  This is looking down one of the walking streets back through the old city wall which goes back at least to the early 1400's, and may be much older.    Taormina is famous for its marvelous Greek Amphitheatre ...but it was closed today.

Dominick the Christmas Donkey

Just a funny song ... Brucoli is a small village well south of Belpasso.

This is not my video .. I found it on YouTube.

The YouTube link is http://youtu.be/Ok5rOO2v2dU

Enjoy!