Author Archives: nnichols

Well, it is the end of the semester and everyone has either left now or is in the process of leaving; we had our final dinner on Wednesday after the final final — the interpretation of two works in Catania's… Continue reading →

This was our final week of classes. On Friday we visited the 4th century villa at Piazza Armerina, famous for its many beautiful mosaics:For more pictures, follow this link. On Saturday we were lucky to be able to go to… Continue reading →

This week we spent Thursday at the opera in Catania, and Friday and Saturday at two of the more up-market resorts in the area, first, Taormina, with its wonderful Hellenistic/Roman theater, and then on Saturday, as part of an excursion,… Continue reading →

Last week we visited the beautifully kept Sicel city of Morgantina — the Classical, Hellenistic and Roman site that is the main part, the rather more off-the-beaten track archaic citadel destroyed by the Sicel leader Ducetius, and the excellent museum… Continue reading →

A busy weekend: on Saturday many of us went up Etna with our local geologist Alessandro to illuminate the craters, lavatubes, rifts and other varied volcanic phenomena. We reached the snow, and even briefly had some hail and snow fall… Continue reading →

Today we returned from our long trip to Tunisia and western Sicily: four days in Tunisia, two in Sicily. We visited eleven sites, including Bulla Regia, Chemtou, Carthage and Dougga in North Africa, and Motya, Segesta, Solunto and Himera in… Continue reading →

Back to field trips after our midterm break (with trips ranging from Salzburg to Barcelona — thanks to all for showing slides yesterday) we went to Syracuse for the second time, this time to the outskirts, the Euryalus fortress and… Continue reading →

This week we took a two-day trip to the southwest side of the island, to the most spectacular sites in Sicily, Agrigento (ancient Acragas) and Selinunte (ancient Selinus). The weather was glorious both days. Agrigento boasts the temples of… Continue reading →

On Friday, we took the longish drive to the south coast of Sicily primarily to see the wonderful coin and vase collections of the Museum in Gela. The city itself is less than scenic, fronted, like two other Greek colonies… Continue reading →

Today was the Greek colony of Naxos, agreed by the Greek sources to be the first of the Greek colonies in Sicily — but a bit of an odd one. Not much land, no columns in the temples, Sicels very… Continue reading →