Though my grandparents are very well travelled, they had not yet gone to Sicily, at least not until today.
The day started with the awesome eruption of an active volcano, Stromboli, which erupts every 20 minutes with jets of lava. Amazingly, people still live on the island in the shadow of the volcanoes cinder cone in spite of past disasters such as Pompeii.
The afternoon saw a visit to Cerafu, a small seaport on the northern side of Sicily. The town was delightful with sandy beaches and lots of sun as well as friendly Italians, narrow streets, sweet ice cream, traffic jams (involving cars, vespas, and pedestrians), and amazingly inconspicuous thousand-year-old cathedrals and olive oil factories.
While touring, I learned a valuable lesson from the Normans who ruled the island during the 12th and 13th centuries: tolerance is the best policy towards diversity, even if you are an absolute monarch. Roger II, a catholic and a Norman, on advice of the pope, invaded a Muslim-run Sicily in the 12th century AD. When he successfully conquered the island, Normans made up only 7% of the population. However, by involving Muslims in government and adopting 3 official languages (Latin, Greek, Arabic, and sometimes Hebrew), he was able to usher in a golden age of art and architecture to the island.
Also, my first attempted exploratory mission on my own, a desired walk down the beach, was vetoed by Grandma and Grandpa. The reason, it was not safe and the mafia is strong in Sicily. After careful negotiation, I was able to secure some exploratory time for myself in the upcoming ports.
A long day of sightseeing and some amazing sights coming up, so I'm signing off for now.
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Presumably he was Catholic, with a capital "c", and not catholic. I mean, he may have been catholic, but I _really_ don't think that was what you were going for. :-)
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