CHRISTMAS IN CALTAGIRONE

Kari, Trish, Shana, Aiden and I got really brave and travelled to Caltagirone all by ourselves Wednesday. Kari was a champ and drove us all. The experience taught me that GPS really is a wonderful thing!

































Caltagirone is a city famous for handmade pottery. There are at least 2 pottery shops on every street. It's beautiful but very expensive!
















Other than pottery browsing, we spent time looking at the various Nativity displays! There were like 8 of them in town. We saw 3 of them. This is the one at the Piazza Duomo.
















It was on a tall set of stairs. You can see it behind Kari here:



















The town has fliers everywhere with street maps pinpointing the spots where you can find the Nativity scenes. You walk in through the velvet rope, pay a Euro or so, and walk through the scene. Here's one:




We also saw a scene that was built to look like the City of Caltagirone:



There were lots of tours going on that day. We saw tour guides taking groups of adults or groups of school children through town to see the displays. Can you imagine going on a field trip to see a nativity scene??? That would never happen in the US!

Another thing I've learned over here is that if you need help finding something you ask the youngest person possible. Lots of the kids speak English. If you find someone in their 20s, 30s or 40s they're likely to speak Italian. The old folks usually don't speak English or Italian. Sicilian only!