Italian American Herald - July 2019

ACHIEVERS
ARIANNA co-founder planning Festival of Festivals for July 4, 2020
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IT’S ALL GOOD
All our dogs will be in heaven, waiting for us to come home
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VINI DITALIA
Two men with a singular passion for the Sagrantino grape
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JULY 2019
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A view of the beach and the entrance to the gorge inside Alcantara River Park.
By Jeanne Outlaw-Cannavo
I’ve often focused on telling our readers about the many beautiful sites and history of Sicily. I have a true and lasting connection to il bel paese but the island became my second homeandcontinuallycallstomelikethe sirens did to ancient mariners.
During one of our first summers in Sicily the family told us about the nearby Gole
Alcantara. A local attraction, over the years it has become more popular with tourists who increasingly flock to Sicily. It turns out we had driven several times past what is one of the island’s best-kept secrets, the Alcantara River Park, Parco fluviale dell’Alcantara, in theAlcantaraRiverGorge.
The park was established in 2001 for the protection of the river, and to encourage its use as a relaxation area and tourist
destination. The columns and surroundings can be seen in the 2015 film “Tale of Tales.”
The 32-mile-long Alcantara has its source on the south side of Monti Nebrodi and its mouth in the Ionian Sea at Capo Schiso in Giardini-Naxos. The name Alcantara is of Arabicoriginرطنقلا,‎ al-Qanṭarah,“theArch,” and refers to a bridge from Roman times found by the Arabs.
Several thousand years ago, the river bed
was blocked by a lava flow from Mount Etna. As the lava was cooled much more quickly by the water than it would have done otherwise, it crystallized in the form of columns. Over the next millennia, the river naturally eroded a channel through these columns, resulting animpressivegorgesandravines.
On our first visit we walked through the
Into the gorges of Alcantara
Tourists discover volcanic river channel is one of Sicily’s natural treasures
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Vol. 6 / No. 7