Tips for your summer holidays ... despite all what a beautiful Catania

I could not believe my eyes on Christmas morning, just arrived in Catania.

I left a cold Milan which was licking the wounds after the chaos created by the snowfall few days earlier and I found a warm city that had only frozen calendar impressed with the date of September the 25th.

I had promised myself not to come back for a while. Terrible year 2009 for me and my family, too many memories ... to forget soon. But my sly Catania, was always there waiting for me as beautiful and passionate lover who unsuccessfully you try to eliminate from your life.

Beautiful despite everything, despite 20 years of mismanagement, contempt of merciless livability rankings that are too long the only dispute the primacy of the worst cities in Italy for the quality of life.

The day I come back to Milan, after my Christmas holidays, at dawn I watched with longing and hope, along the road to the airport, passing the beautiful fishing village of Ognina witnessed the most important moments of my life, from birth to marriage with the woman I love.

Fire and the sea, the harshness of black lava and the green hills surrounded by golden colors of orange and wheat fields of the plain. Everything here is made of strong contrasts and excesses. We left behind the figure so majestic of the Etna Volcano just whitewashed and a beautiful sea. Then I was forced to endure the image of the waterfront full of dry bushes, the work remains by the red palm weevil and unrecognizable Europa square devastated not by insects, but the speculation-building policies of those who has no consciousness and a bit of love for my homeland.

I was wondering, fantasizing, what if I had an unlimited budget to make this city a paradise on earth?

I saw the extraordinary artistic and natural beauty, the industry of its citizens who were able to rebuild it and make it nine times. The same city that was compared in the 60s as dynamism and economic outlook to the "moral" capital of Italy, my current town, Milano.

I imagined a renovated old town with the churches of Crociferi Street and Piazza Dante returned to their former glory. Bellini park that rivaled against the best gardens in the world and a university of excellence, among the oldest in the country, able to attract the best brains in the Mediterranean for meeting the challenges of the future.

I dreamed of a prosperous, made of small and large companies, capable of clear social disadvantage and restore dignity to the inhabitants of disadvantaged neighborhoods and a football team that played in a modern stadium, where could be possible even win the serie A league ...

Unfortunately I have not an unlimited budget, but not enough to resign myself to see it treated that way. Wistful? Maybe ... but I wonder how valuable the minds and energies of men of goodwill who despite everything still love Catania?

As a great journalist murdured by mafia called Giuseppe Fava said once "what good is living, if there is not the courage to fight?

Travel to Catania

"You know the land where the lemon trees bloom?
Foliage shine green in the golden orange
A slight wind blows from the sky blue
Myrtle is quiet, serene bay leaves
Well you know? "
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), Italianische Reise - Travel in Italy)

For family reasons, I'm spending a few weeks in Catania, it did not happen since almost three decades, just from the years of Mayor "ciuraru" (*) Enzo Bianco.

I feel a bit like Goethe, surprised by the beauty of the place and moved as a child. I feel a little sense of guilt, in light of the warm Sicilian winter, at the thought of my wife left in the 30 cm of snow in Milan.

My point of view is distorted by feelings, the infinite love for my city left with my heart in my throat, the carefree years when the most serious problem was to give an exam at the university and now I see the lost places of my childhood .

Unfortunately, Catania has worsened over the years and I do not understand how the center-left parties have managed to lose yet another round of elections, despite the disasters of the previous administration "sciampagnino" (*) are clear for all to see.

The left "lives" in Catania (not only) in a parallel universe, and so I'm not surprised it decides to emulate Barak Obama, on a virtual world: face book ...

What can I say ... good luck, but I know that without a concrete proposal and adding value to people life, they will be able to organize only a drink at Bar Europa!

Meanwhile today, on a local television, I heard one of its top executives, hoped the elimination of preferences even in local elections (as proposed at national level by the Italian premier Silvio Berlsuconi) ... then nobody wondering why people are no longer able to distinguish what is right or left ...

In my own small, infinitely loving my hometown, I can only support the new mayor Raffaele Stancanelli and hope that this nightmare will end soon and that Catania return to being the radiant city sung by Carmen Consoli.

(*) The people from Catania like to give a nickname to every thing, if the outgoing mayor was cleared with a derogatory nickname (sciampagnino - cheaper drink) no better fate had Enzo Bianco who was accused by his detractors to have only made cosmetic improvements to the city with plants spread over some main street ... from here ciuraro (florist)


Catania 1920 - The Marina