Ragusa (February 21)

It was a beautiful day in Ragusa, a small town in the southern part of Sicily, probably the nicest day we’ve had on the trip.  After debarking the bus and hiking up a small hill, we arrived at La Piazza San Giorgio.  We met up with our two tour guides, Barbara and Francesca.  The kids were divided up into two groups and each group had their own guide. Ours was Francesca, a very energetic woman, and her bright yellow jacket only accentuated this point.

My first observation of the town was the absence of people.  I noticed this same phenomenon in Taormina the day before.  So where are all the people?  Are they on holiday? Have we walked into some ghost town that has been perfectly preserved?  As Jerry Seinfeld would say, “what’s the deal?”

As one of the SYA Italian teachers said in jest, “Ragusa….where the men are aristocratically sublime while the women are home baking and the children are at school.”  In Ragusa’s defense, it’s not a huge tourist attraction and it was a Friday morning, not a point in the week where there would be a lot of people milling about in the streets.  That said, Ragusa was one of the cleanest towns I’ve seen in Italy.

Here are some facts about Ragusa. It has two patron saints, San Giuseppe and San Giorgio.  The whole town was flattened by an earthquake in 1693.  The only surviving piece of the old town was the portal to the church of San Giuseppi (see left).  As a result the entire city was rebuilt and moved to its current location.  All of the major fortresses were built during the Barroque period.  The exterior of the duomo of San Giorgio (see left)  is a good illustration of this style architecture.  While Mount Etna is visible from Ragusa, this town actually sits on the edge of another mountain range called Iblea.  Ragusa is also credited for inventing ravioli and is also well known for their gnocci.

Francesca, our guide, was great.  Aside from maintaining an authentic smile on her face the whole time, she was extremely knowledgeable about the area and she was very patient with our kids throughout.  One of her many teachable moments was to distinguish for the kids the difference between a chiesa and a duomo.  While any town in Italy has numerous churches, there is usually only one duomo.  I say “usually” because Ragusa actually has two duomos.  The duomo of a town is considered the main church.  A duomo can be a cathedral if there is a sitting bishop of the town.  This picture is the interior of one of the Duomos, San Giorgio, named after Giorgio, the Roman warrior of his time.  The second picture shows one of The Stations of the Cross inside San Giorgio, probably one of the most beautiful sets of The Stations I’ve seen in Italy.  The third picture (below) shows the altar of San Giorgio.

The other duomo, San Giuseppi (pictured at the right, was not opened however Francesca explained the interesting markings just to the right of the entryway.  The markings illustrate an Islamic way of telling time, indicating the once Islamic influence within the region.  If you look blown-up picture below, there is a nail through the 24-hour line.  The 24-hour line indicates sunset.  Given the placement on the sun, it casts a shadow of the nail on the wall, which intersects the other hour lines from hour 18 through 24.  The length of the line from the 24-hour line indicates the amount of sunlight left in the day.  In the picture below, the shadow of the nail is touching the 20-hour line, which would mean that sunset will occur in approximately four hours from the current time.  I’m not sure of the accuracy, given that this picture was taken at around 1 in the afternoon, but the concept still is pretty interesting!