- Full of ancient Phoenician ruins, medieval towers and churches, and a taste that's a little bit Italian, a little bit Greek, and a little bit all its own, Benvenuto Sardinia and Sicily.

(bright music) (bright music) (bright music) (bright music) Curious Traveler is made possible by the following.

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(uplifting music) - [Commentator 4] When you travel with us, you are not the typical tourist.

(bright piano music) - In the heart of the Mediterranean, there are two large islands.

One is known as the Land of the Sardis and the other is known as the land of olive trees and fig trees.

Together they have a rich Phoenician, Greek, and Roman history and scenes like this that look straight out of paradise.

Sardinia and Sicily have so much to be curious about.

Sicily and Sardinia lie in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and at the crossroads of history.

Today of course, you might think of these two islands as Italian but, as we will soon discover, over their histories, they have been ruled and influenced by the Greeks, the Romans, the Phoenicians, North African Arabs, and settled by ancient tribes with slightly familiar sounding names like the Siculi in Sicily and the Sherdan in Sardinia.

Why did everyone want to conquer these islands?

Well, just look at a map for the answer.

As each ancient culture developed in seafaring and trade to control these islands in the middle of the Mediterranean sea would expand their empires.

So each culture left its mark from ancient Greek temples to Roman amphitheaters, to medieval city street plans that you can still walk today to the origins of a writing system we still use today.

(lively accordion music plays) So here's what I'm curious about in Sicily and Sardinia.

Who is this woman on the Sicilian flag?

And why does she have three legs?

What does the island of Mozia have to do with the English alphabet?

Where can you find a temple to Venus in Erice?

When was the number five incorporated into this oh-so-steep path in the village of Savoca?

How does this popular street food tell us about Sicilian history?

(indistinct Italian chattering) So much to be curious about in Sicily and Sardinia.

(accordion music playing) We begin our curious exploration in Sicily.

It is believed that the ancient Siculies or Siciles is where we get the name Sicily.

And the best way to experience Sicily is through its ancient sites and picturesque medieval villages and towns.

Don't mind if I do.

One of the most beautiful villages in all of Sicily is this one, Savoca.

It gets its name from the elderberry plant which in Sicilian dialect is called sabuco.

It has a couple of beautiful churches, some cafes, and a castle way up at the top.

Which brings me to my favorite part of the village.

Like a lot of them around here in Sicily, it is winding, and it's pretty steep and it's full of cobble stones and it is not for the faint of heart, but as you're chugging your way to the top, take time to appreciate that villages like this were designed to make it hard for the bad guys to get to the top.

And joining us on this upward trek is Sicilian local and guide, Beatrice Lumia.

There's some beautiful churches here, a castle here.

Tell us a little bit about the history.

Maybe start with the ancient history first then we'll kind of move on to medieval.

- Yes, so Saboca, like many other villages, was set on the mountains because up to, I would say end of the 16th century, the area and all the shores of Sicily were very often attacked by pirates.

- Right.

- So the safest way to live, and to escape from those attacks was to live in the hills, hiding in hills.

And that's why we have all long series of villages nested really in the mountains.

- [Host] But this picturesque village wasn't always called Savoca.

Its ancient name has something to do with the number five and this castle.

- [Beatrice] The ancient name of Savoca was Pentefur, like the name of the castle which could be five neighborhoods.

- Okay.

- Pente are from Greek five.

- [Host] Next from the number five to the number three.

Time to get curious about the Sicilian flag, full of mythology and symbolism and a whole bunch of legs.

The Sicilian flag is so unique.

You see three legs kind of look like they're turning and a face in the middle and yellow and red, right?

Tell us about the sym-- I remember it but I look and so I forget.

What's the meaning?

- It's made up of different symbols.

- [Host] Yeah.

- The one in the center it's the Medusa.

First of all the symbol itself, it's called Trinacria.

That was also the name of our kingdom along the century sometime.

And the Trinacria is made up of Medusa head and you know the Medusa was one of the three Gorgons and she's this beautiful, I would say, or terrible power to turn people into stone.

Sometimes we would like to have it.

- You don't turn and look, right?

You turn to stone.

- Okay.

- [Host] In fact, some Sicilian families would hang the Trinacria with the Medusa head behind their front door.

But to turn to stone any enemies who tried to enter?

(man saying boo) Now we get to the weirdest part of the flag.

Why does Medusa have three legs?

Is she running real fast up those Savoca Hills?

Nope.

- That was forged by the Greeks and the symbol.

And they added three legs bent at the knee level to represent the shape of Sicily, which is a triangle.

And so there are three capes and the legs represent, and the knee represent each corner of Sicily.

- [Host] Those three legs come from a long tradition of symbols called the triskelion.

There is a 5,000 year old Celtic version again on a medieval church in France.

And even on the modern day flag of England's Isle of Man.

They all symbolize the same thing forward motion, progress, and the cycle or circle of life.

(light music) For our next picture-perfect Sicilian village, we visit Erice with beautiful winding streets, cobbled courtyards, little shops bursting with bright Maiolica pottery and many, many churches.

In fact, Erice is known as the City of a Hundred Churches.

It is also the land of the ancient Elymians, as we will soon learn.

Just as in Savoca, in Erice, get ready to climb, climb, climb up to the top, to explore and discover the town's history.

And climbing along with us is local expert, Saverio Rende, who explains how Mythology, gave this magical hilltop town, its name.

What does Erice mean?

- Oh, Erice is eh- - Erice, sorry, Erice.

- No, no, no, it's perfect.

Erice is the name of a God, or probably the King of the Elymians.

But according to the Latin version, he was a Venus and Zeus son.

He was a man with a lot of strength was just, he had a lot of energy and he was defeated by Hercules or Heracles for the Latins - Yeah, yeah.

- during just a fighting.

- Hercules?

- Hercules, yeah.

And then lost his life, so.

- Well, he has a town named after him, so it's okay, he's still honored.

- Well, yeah.

- [Host] Maybe that divine status made Erice not afraid of heights because when those Elymians came they chose a pretty precarious spot to build their temple.

On this cliff overlooking the Tyrrhenian sea, about 2,500 feet high in the air.

What is it with the ancient people and picking the trickiest mountaintop as a construction site?

I love locations like this because it's fun to learn that places like maybe a Christian Church, is on top of a pagan temple.

- [Saverio] Yes.

- [Host] Or in this case, it's a castle on top of a castle, on top of a temple.

So what do we have here?

And what is underneath that we can't see?

- Oh well, a very good question.

Let's say that just over there, you can see that is the rock of Erice.

- Okay.

- That is the place where different cultures like the Sycanyans, later the Elymians, probably Trojan settlers, later the Phoenicians and then the Romans, everybody used to worship a goddess of love and fertility.

And we know that at the Romans in particular when they were here more than 2000 years ago, they goes back to a temple that they dedicated to the goddess of love, beauty, fertility, Venus.

- [Host] That's right.

In fact, there is some incredible proof that an ancient temple to Venus was here where the castle is today.

These ancient Roman coins with Venus on one side and that Erice temple on the other.

When the Carthaginians ruled Erice, the temple was dedicated to Ishtar.

When the Greeks ruled, it was dedicated to Aphrodite, amazing!

Now, you would think with an archeological treasure like this, the temple would be preserved at all costs, right?

Nah.

- The Normans who came from Normandy, from Northern France.

When they took the control of Sicily in 1093 they destroyed the temple and they used the materials the columns, the capitals to construct a castle.

So today we call this castle, Venus castle.

- It is constructed-- - Okay.

- on the ruins of a previous temple.

- We call that medieval recycling?

- Yes, right, it's the medieval recycling - Yeah!

- Yes, you're right.

- They didn't see the ancient site as something that should be preserved.

They say, oh, there's some rocks, we'll take those.

- Yes, you're right.

They say that's the rock?

Okay, let's construct, let's do something new.

Different, yeah.

They tried to recycle everything, yeah.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

- [Host] So after the castle was built in the middle ages, this lovely town developed its medieval character soon after.

So as you make your way back down the mountain pondering all of Erice's ancient history.

Take time to get lost in the maze of cobbled medieval streets, and maybe enjoy the local pasta dish of pasta e patate, at one of the many darling Osterias.

Carb-a-Palooza!

Well, we have been doing a lot of walking today.

(light music) Next, we go from ancient Romans to ancient Phoneticians to a small island with a big history.

(light music continues) This is Motzia.

Known for having the best preserved Phoenician ruins in all of Sicily.

The Phoenicians of course famously founded Carthage.

Now they started in the Eastern Mediterranean but then spread throughout the entire Mediterranean, including Northern Africa, parts of Italy and parts of Spain.

They also famously butted heads with the Roman empire.

But when they weren't battling everybody they were building a beautiful villas.

Like this one, the Mosaic Villa.

The Mosaic Villa is just one of the many treasures being unearthed here on the tiny island.

These giant wall ruins, dozens of gravestones hundreds of small urns pieces of jewelry, pottery and other artifacts have all been found here.

(light music) Why so much on such a small island?

Well, the Phoenicians, those ancient people of today's Lebanon, were known for their ship building and sea trading prowess across the Mediterranean.

And this little island was in the perfect spot to trade with Africa, Asia and Europe.

(bright music) Motzia was lost to time until an English nobleman named Joseph Whitaker rediscovered it in the 1880s.

He liked the place so much, he built his home here.

That home is now a museum full of Phoenician treasures.

From glorious God-like statues to a really weird use for snails.

You know how the color purple has long been associated with royalty?

Well, we have the Phoenicians to thank for that.

So not only did they invent an alphabet and spread their people all over the Mediterranean, they also invented a color.

What they did is they took thousands and thousands of these little snail shells called Murex, and then they'd grind them up, you can see a little example of it there.

And then they'd kind of boil it down to create one liter of this purple dye.

And this dye was so valuable back in the Phoenicians time it was actually worth its weight in gold, so the Phoenicians became very wealthy.

Yep, that purple dye was so expensive that only Kings and Queens, or emperors could afford to wear purple dyed clothing.

Cyrus, The Great of Persia.

Byzantine Roman Emperor Justinian.

Fancy pants, Louis the 14th of France.

British king George, the sixth.

And of course, beloved Queen Elizabeth II.

All wore the Royal purple.

(Saverio and host discussing) And that's just the beginning of the innovations for which we have the Phoenicians to thank.

In Mesopotamia they had cuneiform.

In Egypt they had hieroglyphics.

And then it was a Phoenician merchant, since they were seafarers.

That said oh what, we need a way to keep track of all of our imports and exports.

So it was really commerce that gave birth to the Phoenician alphabet.

How did it all come to be?

- [Saverio] The Phoenicians, they give life slowly, slowly.

They lived in a Eastern part of the mediterranean.

They gave life to a very particular alphabet.

- [Host] The Phoenician alphabet was groundbreaking.

Unlike Egyptian hieroglyphics, where each symbol represented a syllable, in the Phoenician alphabet, each symbol represents an individual letter or consonant.

Which brings up a teeny tiny problem with this new alphabet.

- It had no vowels.

- No vowels?

- No, nothing - Okay.

- The Greeks later had the A O U, the vowels and we got a complete alphabet.

This is very strange.

So they must, during the pronunciation, the speaking or writing, there must have been a sound like a vowel because you cannot say K L M T, but... - Klmt-- with no vowels - (laughs) Right, they didn't.

- [Host] Then the Romans incorporate this Phoenician and Greek alphabet, into their Latin alphabet.

Which of course spreads throughout the Roman Empire and Europe, eventually into England.

Which, mixed with a few more Runic letters, gives us our modern English alphabet today, phew!

But back to those Phoenicians, here is what is really interesting.

Even after the Greeks added vowels, thank you Greeks.

The Phoenicians kept their alphabet without the vowels.

Apparently, things worked just fine without any a, e, i, o, or u's.

- Yeah, so this has L apostrophe DN, L B L H M N. So what?

Do you happen to speak Phoenician?

- No.

(laughter) - So we don't know what this is?

- Sorry, I cannot.

- Most people don't.

(accordion Music) Next, we leave Sicily for a little while to visit another Mediterranean island where the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Italians all left their mark.

Sardinia is the second largest island in the Mediterranean.

And this is its beautiful capital, Cagliari.

Now, it's history goes back to ancient times and includes the Phoenicians and the Romans.

But I think you'll find that it's medieval old town with its original city walls and two of its towers, the most charming.

It is believed that Sardinia gets its name from the ancient Sherdon tribe.

Later, the Romans named this city, Coralis.

Which we now call Cagliari.

And Cagliari is home to one of the most important Roman monuments in all of Sardinia.

This amphitheater.

It was built in just the right spot.

A natural valley here in the hillside of Bon Camino.

Speaking of hillsides up Panero hill we climb, to enter Cagliari's charming old town, with its Castello quarter.

It's majestic triumphal arch on top of the Bastian of St. Remy.

It's pretty in pink city hall, and possibly my favorite part of the city: These darling little post boxes.

With symbols of the city, along those cobbled medieval streets.

And in the center of the beautiful Castello quarter, is a very curious cathedral.

(lively piano music) There are many, many layers of history in and under this cathedral.

First, under our feet, it is believed that there is a Phoenician Acropolis back when Cagliari was called Coralis or Corel, meaning city of God.

So it is fitting that a church would be built on this spot.

And the cathedral of Cagliari has undergone many changes over the centuries.

The version you see today was inspired by a pretty curious source, the cathedral in Piza.

Yep, the not-as-famous sidekick to the famous leaning tower of Piza.

Next, we go from a church to the devil.

Well, the devil saddle that is.

See that dip in the mountain there?

That is called the devil saddle, because of a legend that goes like this: The water below that saddle is named the Gulf of Angels.

Those angels were always in battle with the devil.

Until one day, the devil fell.

Leaving only his saddle behind.

This story, and the devil's saddle are so important to Cagliari, that the Sella del Diavolo, is the symbol of the city.

How curious.

(bright music) All righty, after all that learning it is time for snack and not just any snack.

One that justifies sailing from Sardinia, back to Sicily, to the town of Messina.

Messina is known for its beautiful cathedral.

And its curious clock tower with several clocks and calendars including one of the most sophisticated mechanical astronomical clocks in the world On the front of the clocktower you'll find some curious figures Including a rooster, a lion and very important symbol of Messina the revered Madonna of the Letter.

In fact, this so important to the city you will see a much, much bigger version back at the port, where the Madonna can be see high a top her perch, greeting visitors to the city.

The phrase: "Vos et ipsam civitatem benedicimus" at the base of the monument translates to: "We bless you and the city."

This is all inspired by the story of St. Paul the apostle.

Who preached here on the shores of Messina, and according to legend, the Virgin Mary sent a letter to the people of Messina, through St. Paul.

(wondrous music) Well, St. Paul was a curious traveler of sorts.

So after all that walking surely he had to stop and eat every once in a while.

So we will follow his lead and partake in a truly Sicilian snack.

And for that, we meet back up with our friend Beatrice Lumia.

(accordion music concludes) All right, we are just taking a very quick stop here in Messina.

- We have to because we have to try arancini.

- All right, arancini.

- Yes, the typical Sicilian street food.

This is a very well known place.

- Okay.

- And we call this rosticeria.

So, Fratelli Famulari is the name of the company.

We have a big example here.

- Yeah.

- And they're not the real size but-- - This is not something that someone's gonna get?

- For sure!

I would say, yes (laughing) And so, but the shape is of course similar to the ones we have.

They're different shapes to distinguish them according to what is inside.

- Okay, let's go inside and see what we have here.

Arancini is rice usually mixed with cheese and all kinds of other delicious things.

Then coated in bread crumbs and fried.

So you can eat it with one hand without a fork.

Kind of the perfect street food.

This conical cuisine is so much more than just the favorite fast food of Sicily.

It is a symbol of the many different cultures that have influenced this island.

First, arancini loosely translates to ´little oranges█.

And saffron is added to the rice to make it look like an orange.

Why an orange?

Well, because between the ninth and 11th centuries Arabs imported oranges for the first time to Western Sicily.

and they were considered very exotic.

But what about the more popular cone shape here on the Eastern side of Sicily?

Well, the cone is believed to symbolize Mount Aetna here on the east coast of Sicily.

Phew!

Now that that's all figured out, let's find out which flavor of arancini we're going to eat.

All right, so there's a fresh batch here, what are these?

- Yes, those still have to be fried.

- Okay, oh wow!

- And so this is just a few examples of the 50 variety they have.

- Whoa!

- So 50 different arancini that can be prepared.

- Okay, yep.

- So according to what they put inside-- - What is?

And I won't touch anything, what are the, that's black bread?

(exclaiming in Italian) Yep, this treat is served up with a little Italian lesson on the side.

It's a snow man!

(Italian exclaiming continues) How do I say very cute?

- Molto carino.

- Molto ca-- Molto what?

- Carino, carino.

- Carino, Molto carino, molto carino!

(Italian server exclaims) And to top it all off for the Bambini!

- [Server] Bambini cioccolato - Oh, this is a sweet.

- Oh, sweet.

- A sweet, a chocolate-- - So you can have your dinner and then a dessert.

- Yes, why not?

- [Host] You had me at cioccolato.

So, I got my Sicilian snack, a blessing from the Virgin Mary, and even a rainbow on our visit to curious Messina.

What more could a curious traveler ask for?

(uplifting piano music) So, from a Sicilian symbol with three legs and a Hilltop castle named for five neighborhoods, to another Sicilian village with another Hilltop castle built on the ruins of a pagan temple full of mythology and mystery.

To a tiny little island full of archeological treasures, with clues to a Royal color in the origins of nothing short of an entire alphabet.

To a capital named 'City of God' with a Roman amphitheater, a Phoenician cathedral, and some medieval walls and an ever battling angel and devil.

Finally, to some conical cuisine that is dedicated to some Arab settlers and one big volcano.

Sicily and Sardina have so much to be curious about.

(triumphant piano music) Thank you for joining us on our educational journey.

And hopefully now you're even more curious about the who, what, where, why, when and how's of curious Sicily and Sardina.

As they say here, stammi bene!

- [Host] You don't want that piece you want this piece, I know how that goes.

- [Woman] You're like, we don't want these land trackers!

(laughing) - They're like, where's the red garlic what's going on here?

- [Man] Fish, they like fish, they like fish.

- Come with me, come with me!

[Man] They like fish, they like fish.

- Oh they like fish, I'll have to remember this.

- [Woman] Do they like cheese?

- I love that they rejected my offerings.

- [Woman] Do they like cheese?

- [Host] Curious traveler is made possible by the following: (triumphant orchestral music) - [Commentator] At Regent Seven Seas Cruises, we believe that personal space is essential to the luxury travel experience.

With no more than 732 guests, our ships allow you to explore the world and discover the freedom of having space at sea.

- [Commentator 2] Over 300 tours across all seven continents.

Over 40 years of serving travelers.

You can experience effortless, fun, vacations and authentic experiences with get, GETours.com - [Commentator 3] Windstar cruises, intimate private yacht style cruises to the Mediterranean, Caribbean, Tahiti, and more.

We look forward to seeing you onboard, WindstarCruises.com.

(uplifting music) - [Commentator 4] When you travel with us, you are not the typical tourist.

- [Host] And closed captioning provided by Tap Air Portugal.

Still curious?

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