Just wanted to make sure that the beauty and horticulture of our last hotel was documented.

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The Catanian coastline was spectacular. Unlike many other Sicilian shores we’d seen, Catania had no sandy beach. This is, perhaps, what caused ancient authors to equate this place, harsh and rocky as it is, to the land of the Cyclopes.

This also must have been one of the first landing points for colonizing Greeks. With the natural super-phenomenon of Aetna and the mythology of the Cyclopes, ancient Katana must have been a religious/mythologically important area for the Greeks. (But then again, what place wasn’t?)

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There was an interesting mini-ecosystem in the freshwater spring of Arethusa, complete with palm trees, fish, and geese! One wonders how such a diverse assortment of creatures ended up in the same tiny pool, located between a dirty city and the salty ocean. Maybe some nymphs were involved.

Meanwhile, in the heart of the city, an old temple of Apollo served as a playground for a delightful cat. Fur of black, heart of gold.

 
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On the last day of our trip we visited Mt. Etna! In classical mythology, it was here that Hephaestus, the blacksmith of the gods, assisted by the mighty Cyclops kept his fiery forge. Here too was said to be the prison of the terrible Typhon, the great fire-breathing serpent Zeus defeated in the Typhonomachy. Both of these legends serve an etiological purpose, seeking to explain the volcanic activity of Mt. Etna, and now it was our turn to see the mountain I had only read about in myth.

 

Even at a distance the white, snow-capped volcano dominated the horizon, towering above the nearby city of Catania. As we advanced along the winding roads up the mountainside, dark volcanic rock and snow gradually dominated the landscape, a stark departure form the lush greenery of the rest of the island. We then left the bus and hopped on a gondola to continue our ascent. At last we arrived near the top, where we enjoyed the expansive view that lay before us, waged some hard fought snowball fights, as well as collected small pieces of the mountain to bring back home with us. It was a perfect opportunity to reflect on all the amazing things that we had seen as well as the friendships that had been strengthened throughout the course of the trip.

   
Modica offered one of our first tastes of baroque architecture. It also provided an example of “unique” civil engineering; the age of the city showed in the sheer number of stairs and ramps. Newer cities, such as those in America, would opt to either change/flatten the landscape, or else would just be located elsewhere.

 This panorama shows all of Modica. It sparked debate on the population size of the city, and on how to differentiate a city from its suburbs. Fascinating.

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