Modica
Under a Modican heaven
The weather in Sicily can be capricious at this time of year and never was it more so than in the past week: on Friday Modica’s Chocobarocco Festival opened to rain clouds and consequent doubts about its success but we needn’t have worried....
Read MorePatti Chiari - Christmas cards and confusion
“Ma siete tutti pazzi!” [“You’re all mad!”] exclaimed my friend Lucia when I told her I intended to spend Wednesday evening writing my Christmas cards......
Read MorePatti Chiari - electoral antics
Reports of a possible early general election in Italy have caused me to remember some of the fun and complications involved in voting here.
Read MorePatti Chiari - A wedding planner with a difference
Visit Giusy Asta’s shop in Modica Bassa and you will find yourself in a treasure trove of “bomboniere”[wedding favors] fashion accessories and other beautiful items created by Giusy herself. Pat interviewed Giusy for Italy Magazine.
Read MorePatti Chiari - Interview with Katia Amore of LoveSicily Cookery School
I began reading the loveSicily blog soon after arriving here but it was not until 2009 that I realised that the loveSicily Cookery School was right on my doorstep in Modica! I contacted Katia Amore and attended one of her Sicilian cookery courses myself. This week I interviewed Katia for Italy Magazine.
Read MorePatti Chiari - Nino Baglieri, unofficial Saint of Modica
I arrived in Modica just two years before the death of Nino Baglieri and I did not know of him until I read of his passing in 2007. I then decided to find out more about this gentle man who had suffered so much, yet drawn so many to him.
Read MorePatti Chiari - Bold Britons and red earth
A strange aspect of changing your country is that for a while you can lose what I call your “inner barometer”, the part of you that, in your own country, instinctively knows what the weather is going to do. Sometimes when it momentarily clouds over in Sicily you might think, “It is bound to rain”...
Read MorePatti Chiari - The most important man in my life
I’ve mentioned my wonderful hairdresser, Raffaele Falco, before. His salon is where I go for coffee and empathy, a gossip or advice and sometimes I have my hair done too! I thought you might like to get to know him better so I interviewed him for Italy Magazine.
Read MorePatti Chiari - Raffaele Giardina, a peaceable modican
I often think that one of the reasons I feel at home in Sicily is that there are dry-stone walls everywhere, reminding me of the dry-stone walls of Gloucestershire, where I spent a lot of my childhood. In the mid-twentieth century, a Modican man who made his home in Britain also remembered dry-stone walls, but in his case it was the dry-stone walls of Ireland which reminded him of Sicily....
Read MorePatti Chiari - An unusual museum in Modica
The Museo Tommaso Campailla is not easy to find, is not signposted and is mentioned in few guidebooks. It is tucked away in two rooms in what used to be a hospital building....
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