"SICILIA" Sicilia by STEFZAMM

"Check out my Catania, Palermo, Aci Trezza & all my other Sicily pages for more..... "

LA BELLA SICILIA - 1989

My first holiday ever was to Sicily.. when I was 8 years old....

Finally the day had arrived when my best friend and I were heading off to Sicily.

We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel situated on the outskirts of Catania, yet not very far away from the Catania Airport. The hotel room was great and the sea view was amazing. We arrived late in the afternoon and by 8pm we were ready to go out.

The cab took us to Aci Trezza, a lovely place loaded with bars, pubs, discothecs, restaurants, people and loads of people.

We chose a restaurant. This was hard as all seemed to be full and the nice aroma was coming from everywhere.
We agreed on having different dishes in order to taste both and I can tell you, the food was mega delicious!

We also made some shopping from the stalls that were situated by the sea and walked along the promenade.

We were told that there was a new pub which we had to visit and so we did.
Cafe De Mar is an amazing outdoor pub, situated on Via LungoMare dei Ciclopi, in Aci Trezza, playing good music, with good vibe, cool people and extra cool bar men!

There we met 3 wonderful people, Gabri, Beppe and Lumi who took us to another wonderful disco called Banacher!

Banacher is one of the largest discos in the area, situated in Via Vampolieri in Aci Castello, another fishers' village, neighbour to Aci Trezza. At the Banacher they play good commercial music and the dance floors are surrounded by large/tall palm trees which enclose hundreds of people dancing till the early morning.

In a flash back I can see our first few hours in Sicily which passed too quickly yet are very hard to forget! Being in the company of my best friend, away on holiday, exploring a new chill out place, seeing new faces, hearing a different language, feeling the summer heat and the nice breeze coming from the sea, being pampared in one of the best hotels in Sicily while very excited and looking forward for the concert the next day.. were enough to put myself and Wendy in great spirits to kick off the Summer of 2003

We managed to wake up at around 09:00hrs on our second day, we had agreed that Beppe will pick us up and takes us to the market place.

10:00hrs we were on our way... not to the market but to "La Menza". La Menza is a very famous Coffee Shop situated on Viale Mario Rapisardi, they specialize in all and many kinds of sweets, from Ice Creams to biscuits, chocolates to the finest panna. Certianly my sweet home fairy tale kinda of place. After alot of sweet tasting we were off to the market.

At the Catania Market you can find a variety of things such as cloths, shoes, accessories, food etc.. while everyone was so excited about the evening concert for which we had travelled...
After having bought a few things we went back to the hotel followed by lunch @ friends...

Gabri and Beppe prepared Penne al Pesto which is a typical Italian dish. Their summer house is at Aci Trezza, a few kilometers away from Aci Castello. Aci Trezza is a fishers village and also known as La Riviera dei Ciclopi. Their house was situated very close to the sea, where one could see very clearly the Faraglioni which are like long pointed pieces of black rocks coming out of the crystal waters along the promenade of this fishers' village. The legend says that these rock were thrown at Odysseus by the blinded Cyclops, Promethous.

We couldn't stay very long as at around 18:00hrs we had to leave for the concert.

The concert was held at the Catania football Ground, (ex Cibali). The streets were packed and we had to park a bit far. Beppe had no tickets but fortunately he managed to buy at the door.

The place was packed .. full... we were very happy to finally be there and ever since it started from the first song "Strada Facendo" till the very end ... we enjoyed every bit of Baglioni's Concert - "Sono Io - l'uomo della storia accanto".... in one word it was amazing, one big show embedded in my memories for ever...

The show kept on till the early morning hours but the night was too young for us to go back to the hotel and we were off to La Plaza :) It was a bit of a long road and through 1 or 2 or 3 adventures we managed to get to La Plaza !

La Plaza is the largest open air disco I've ever seen, it is situated on Lido Azzurro, Viale Kennedy, Catania. Its basically situated on the beach... on the sand and has loads of tents featuring different type of music. Gabri and Beppe specialize in Caraibic dancing and Wendy and I were amazed at the amount of all aged people dancing salsa and La Bachiata and the meringue and obviously Wendy gave it a try ....

Along the promenade on our way back to the centre of Catania at around 05:00hrs with "Parole Parole" of Mina in the background, we didn't want that long day to end and so we headed to an ice cream place where we indulged in ice creams and croissants.......

Sunday was our last day and after packing and checking out Beppe had promised us a wonderful Sunday lunch and so we drove to Aci Reale. We would have never been able to find the restaurant on our own as it is situated in the country side and there is nothing else around. I don't even know the name and I don't recall seeing a sign with the name on entrance. The locals call it by the owner's name! In a few words the worst looking restaurant that I've ever been too but with the best food I've ever tasted. The kind of the more you eat the more you would want to eat. Completely full we had to rest at Aci Trezza then in the evening we did our finaly shopping at Misterbianco.

Misterbianco is one of the largest places for shopping in Catania, It has several indipendent shops selling food, cloths, souvenirs and many other essentials.

We could not leave Catania without a last visit to La Menza, we would have not left without our favourite bacio ice cream with panna and sweets to take home.

Sadly we drove to the Airport ... with chocolate roses and wonderful moments we'd never forget....

Whilst looking forward to visit sicilly again and again I suggest you check out my Catania, Palermo, Aci Trezza & all my other Sicily pages for more.....

• Pros:PRO'S ...??? DON'T THINK I HAVE MUCH SPACE FOR THIS !!!... PEOPLE, DISCOS, ENTERTAINMENT, FOOD, ICE CREAMS, SHOPPING, GUYS ;), ANY KIND OF FUN?, GOOD STYLE?, AMAZING PEOPLE? U NAME IT.. ITS ALL IN SICILY xxx
• Cons:CON'S ..??? I'M AFRAID I'M MADLY IN LOVE WITH SICILY.. NO CON'S !!!
• In a nutshell:DOLCE E GABBANA WEREN'T THE ONLY TWO WHO FELL IN LOVE WITH IT.... I'M IN LOVE xxx