Goodbye to our Indian friends

Dear etwinning friends from India wishing you Happy holidays ( you are very lucky that school there finishes in these days) we would like to say something to you.
Here in Sicily is already spring. And what about your country?
We liked your dance very much: it was a great idea to dance a traditional dance of another country and you were very good. We thought to send you a video of our traditional dance that is "tarantella",but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to make it. Now we are going to make some videos to say goodbye to you. We hope you will have the possibility to watch them even if you are on holiday! We hope to work with you next year too for a new project. We learnt a lot about your culture and your legends. They are so special!

Goodbye from Italy!!!!!

The legend of the chestnut of the 100 horses.

There is a chestnut in a small village

called Saint Alfio at the foot of volcano

Etna which seems to be the biggest and the most ancient tree in Europe (between 2000 and 4000 years old).

It can be considered a real "vegetal monument" and it attaracts lots of tourists every year.

Its story was told by Jean Houl who after a visit in S. Alfio was so impressed that he wrote about it.

There is a fascinating legend linked to this marvellous tree that tells us that queen Giovanna d'Aragona used to go to Naples and then to Sicily to visit volcano Etna together with the nobles from Catania riding a horse like her knights.

It seems that one day she with all her knights was caught in the storm, so she took refuge under the huge tree whose leaves became a very safe shelter for all of them.

Today the tree is divided into three hollowed trunks. In the past there was a house inside it.

The legend of the baroness of Carini

There is a fascinating legend about ghosts which tells us about a famous baroness who lived in Carini in 1500 whose name was Laura Lanza and who at the age of 14 was forced by her father to marry the baron of Carini, a village in the province of Palermo. After some time she was disappointed because she thouhgt to live happily with the baron. On the contrary, he left her alone most of the day to take care of his lands. So, she fell in love with Ludovico Vernagallo and she became his lover . Her husband discovered the love story of the baroness and he killed her and Ludovico with the help of her father. The room of the murder, which was in the west side of the castle of Carini, nowadays is totally destroyed but it is said that on a wall there was the bood-stained hand-print of the baroness. All what remains of the legend is: the ghost of Laura, who it is said that goes around inside the castle and a particular mistery... somewhere in the main tower of the castle in the area of the west side there is a hand sculptured on the wall.

The origin of Rome, the capital of Italy

According to a fascinating legend, Romolo and Remo were the children of the God Marte and Rea Silva, who was the daughter of the king of Alba Longa Numitore. Numitore was deposed by his brother Amulio who forced Rea Silva to do vow of chastity.
King Amulio who knew of the birth of Romolo and Remo became furious and ordered to kill the children, but the servant who had to kill them wasn't so corageous to do that ; so he decided to put the children in a basket and leave them in the river Tevere. The basket who was pushed by the current, after some time stopped in an area which is the actual Palatino . Here children were found by a she-wolf that brought them with her till when a shepherd whose name was Faustolo found them and he brought them at home and he raised them. When they grew up Romolo and Remo came back to Alba Longa where they killed their uncle Amulio. Numitore became king again. The brothers decided to found a new town. A name for the town had to be chosen but neither Romolo nor Remo wanted to give up; so after a terrible quarrel Romolo killed Remo and the town was founded by Romolo who gave it his name and he himself became the first king of Rome.

The Eolie islands

The Eolies, as the legend tells us, have been created by Eolo, the god of winds. They are seven isles situated in the province of Messina and they are : Lipari, Vulcano, Stromboli, Panarea, Salina, Alicudi and Filicudi. The islands were submarine volcanoes emerged from the waters around 700.000 years ago in this order : Panarea, Filicudi, Alicudi, Salina, Lipari, Vulcano and Stromboli ;the latter is probably 40.000 years old.
Many archaeological sites have been discovered in all the islands (this means that they were inhabited during the prehistoric age) exception done for Vulcano which couldn't be inhabited because of its continuous and intense erptions of its crater.

Catania is cool ! ! !