Art and Beauty:
the contemporary
of the roots
Sicily is rich of millenary cultures that produce a fertile humus from which the bulbs of creativity continually sprout, characterizing cities, valleys, and landscapes with powerful beauty.
Thus, Sicily has been able to take up the challenge of modernity, continuing to be a place where fervent minds, not only Sicilian, launch their universal messages.
There are many works scattered along the streets of the cities, on promontories overlooking the Mediterranean, on dominant fortresses or collected in local sites.
Palermo, Catania, Syracuse, Agrigento, Noto, Bagheria, Favara, Palazzolo Acreide, Gibellina, Castel di Tusa represent the most important urban heritage expressing the contemporary art panorama.
You will dialogue with different artists who will talk to us about their experiences, you will meet critics and scholars, our “Living Heritage”, who will make you understand places introducing you to an intimate and personal emotional dimension.
Given the vastness of the cultural and natural heritage, we will present 2 itineraries that respectively concern the Western area and the Eastern one.
It is a journey that aims to convey to the tourist the profound union between the volcano and its people, demonstrating how it always affects human affairs and all the craftworks
Etna involves not only human life, but also characterizes colours as well as smells.
Through a historical and geological journey, it is possible to go through a parallel path and understand how man has
evolved in the urbanization of places, art, cultivating the land, in relationships, and understand the differences.
You will learn how the lava becomes basalt to transform itself into building stones, as into sculptures or even precious jewels. You will know how the agri-food excellences, which you will taste, are cultivated, and cared for.
The black land grants honey, pistachio, oil, wine, renowned all over the world and the lesser-known ones, which are not very widespread due to their limited production.
You will meet our “Living Heritage”, they will explain everything about the Volcano from its origins till nowadays. They will also recall how people lived in the olden times and will enhance the colours and scents of plants and fruits, but above all they will make you feel like indigenous Etna’s people.
People and the Volcano:
coexistence over
the centuries
Gran tour
of Etna
A slow walk from East to West. Almost 90 kms around the highest volcano in Europe and among the most active on the
About twenty kilometres will be covered every day. Departure from Fornazzo, municipality of Milo, arriving after four days of
On the fifth day, you will climb to the top of “Muntagna”, the name local people usefor the Etna. You make almost the complete tour of the volcano.It is a circular route on the upper parts of Etna, from 600 meters above sea level up to 2,000.You will climb with jeeps to the summit craters at 3,200 meters above sea level. A unique and shocking landscape identity that will allow you to enter symbiosis with the environment and enjoy all its varied aspects.
In the morning the efforts of trekking will be rewarded by the continuous emotions you will have walking through centuries- old woods and lunar paths.In the evening, you will refresh yourself in comfortable environments that will pamper you and give you back strength for the next day.
We will meet our “Living Heritage” to know and understand the “Mountain” with its history, its colours and scents, as well as his children and their work: the Etna’s environment.
“Sicily is perhaps the land that more than any others offers the visitor cultural and anthropological scenarios capable of arousing big suggestions and emotions; birth place of many dominations (Phenicians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Spanish, Austrians), Sicily is a crossroad of histories, myths, legends, enigmas, holy and profane traditions and misteries that have their roots in a very distant past…” (from “Sicilia Esoterica”, Marinella Fiume)
…A past never completely forgotten.
Sicily, sunny and nocturnal, truthful and misterious, hides histories and legends of awsomness.
This path, real and immaginary at the same time, is intended to be a map to discover the Sicilian places richest in magic and mystery.
The term esoteric, in religious and philosophical field, indicates the secret doctrines and teachings which must not be divulged because only intended to few. We want to mark for you this misterious path that wants to run away from the simplicity of the journey itself transforming it into an experience of the soul.
Enigmatic lands,
of magic
and mistery
ARCHAEOASTRONOMY
Stars, rocks and megaliths:
the origins of Sicilian religiosity
The observation of the sky, and its many phenomena, has always been an activity of humankind , since its very first appearance.
It has given different interpretations, which gradually, over centuries and millennia, have left the field to increasingly objective explanations, and, subsequently, with the arrival of the first technical instruments and the scientific method, with
Galileo, has given shape to “modern astronomy” and, then again to “astrophysics”. Since prehistoric times, in fact, man has been very interested in the movement of the sun, the moon and
the stars in the celestial vault, putting it in relation to the cycle of the day and the seasons, thus regulating his activities (e.g.
sowing and harvesting), and in divine manifestations (instituting honoring feasts and propitiatory celebrations).
Sicily has a very rich heritage of testimonies, consisting of monoliths, dolmens, and other artifacts, even complex, which confirm the attention that of the primitive people who lived on the island, had towards these events; “Archaeoastronomy” is the new science which studies and interprets the meanings of the complex symbolic and cultural apparatus.
We want to introduce you to an unprecedented and unusual prehistoric Sicily, accompanying you in suggestive places, marked by our distant ancestors who today, thanks to the story of passionate researchers, take on enigmatic and unexpected meanings.
