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Italy is a beautiful country to visit!

Far North to deep South, and all those wonderful islands in between, there’s so much of this lovely country to explore.
However, we realise that to see everything would take a lifetime. Maybe more. And, as we are now ‘of a certain age’, this won’t be happening!

A local visiting one of our splendid sites

As just one ‘for instance’ here, Italy has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the world: A total of 60 as of 2024. China, which dwarfs this country in size, ‘only’ has 59, while Germany comes third with 54.
An interesting aside here: Sicily has the most UNESCO World Heritage Sites of any Italian region, with a total of seven. So is the number one region, in the number one country!
Now we actually live in one of those sites. As the ‘Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto’ includes Modica in its number.
Go us!
Anyways, it would be easy to get overwhelmed by such statistics. I mean: Where do you start? What do you see first? Just how are you supposed to rank one above the other then?
All good questions. Which I’ve chosen to entirely ignore. For nowt!
Instead, we’ve decided we simply must concentrate on our 25,000 square kilometre (10,000 square mile) island. So, we’ve been visiting our island’s capitals. So far, we’ve visited (and stayed) in Ragusa, Agrigento, Caltanissetta, Catania, Enna, Messina and Siracusa. Leaving us Palermo and Trapani.
Which (hopefully) we’ll visit this year or the next.

Crash Bang!

What is it with local drivers?

The amount of traffic accidents across Ragusa (our) province has skyrocketed!
A quick search on only one news website shows:
•  A man died in a ‘single-vehicle’ accident after being ejected from his van. Which likely meant no safety belt;
•  A truck collided head-on with a car and, subsequently, two other vehicles became involved. A total of eight people were taken to A&E, none seriously injured. Which likely meant someone crossed lanes, and those other two cars were following too close;
•  A near-head-on collision between two cars saw six people taken to A&E. Only one suffered serious injury, but his condition wasn’t life-threatening. Which likely meant someone crossed lanes;
•  An accident involving two cars and a motorcycle, resulting in only minor injuries. Which likely meant someone crossed lanes, and was following too close;
•  A 19-year-old man was airlifted to Catania after he lost control of his scooter. Which likely meant he was going too fast;
•  Two youths on a scooter were hospitalised for minor injuries following an accident involving them and two cars. Which likely meant someone crossed lanes, and was following too close; and
•  A scooter broke into three after a 15-year-old on his way to school lost control, crashing into a car and then the ground. Reports claim poor road conditions. Which likely meant he wasn’t driving to those conditions.
Many preventable or avoidable surely? And locals are considered better than others on the island!
This is why we drive cautiously…!

Name That Tree

Writing of our province, one of the things you’ll notice here are stone-walled fields of cultivated trees.
Now about everybody can recognise an olive tree when they see one.

Ripe carob 'beans'

But what about a carob? Because, much like the olive, the almond, and not forgetting the ‘prickly pear’ cactus (Opuntia), they’re about everywhere here. And by ‘here’, I mean just that!
In Italy, it’s centre of cultivation is Sicily, and more especially Ragusa province, which is responsible for about 70 percent of national production. Production that sees Italy coming second only to Spain in tonnage produced.
The “Carruba”, or the “Carrua” in Modican dialect, has an elongated, dark brown skin when fully ripe, and harvesting begins in mid- to late-August. About now then!
The carob ‘beans’ … fleshy, sugary, and quite hard … have a flavour very reminiscent of cocoa. I’ll say here that Alice f’sure likes to munch ‘em raw ... as do many other locals.
But their main use is culinary, of course.
Of which, the most well-known use is when they’re ground to a powder, or ‘chipped’, and used as a chocolate substitute. The seeds can be used to produce ‘carob gum’, a common thickening agent. High-end gelato producers will use carob ‘flour’ instead of wheat starch, as a thickener and emulsifier. Carob syrup is used as a liquid sweetener: An alternative to maple syrup, agave, or honey.
Even Modican chocolate is often enhanced with carob to produce more complex flavours.
So now you know!

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