Acireale
THE CARNIVAL OF ACIREALE
The Carnival of Acireale, known as The most beautiful Carnival of Sicily and the third in Italy, is one of the oldest in the island and takes place every year in the city of Acireale.
Among its features is the parade of allegorical and infiorate wagons. The parade of allegorical-grotesque carts in papier mache takes place every year during the carnival. In the parade the wagons show thousands of light bulbs and lights people also have the opportunity of seeing spectacular movements and constantly evolving sets during the performances.
They are the only wagons in the world to use this type of lighting, mechanical and hydraulic systems. The Italian sweet named ‘Chiacchere’ is very ancient. In fact, the origins date back to when in ancient Rome the Saturnali was celebrated, a festival very similar to today's Carnival. During this period of banquets and folk festivals, in which all social canons were overturned, one of the symbols of excess was frictilia, fried sweets in pork fat, distributed to the crowd in the streets of the city.
THE LEGEND
The Legend tells Polyphemus, a cyclops who lived in the volcano, was mad in love with the young Galatea. The beautiful nymph was one of the fifty nymphs of the sea, the Nereids, daughters of the marine deities Doris and Nereus.The story told that Aci was a beautiful shepherd, son of Faunus, who grazed his sheep near the sea, when one day he saw Galatea and fell in love with her; they both fell in love with each other. Aci and Galatea were very much in love and therefore the advances of Polyphemus towards the nymph proved useless. One evening, at moonlight, the cyclops saw the two lovers by the sea kissing.
Blinded by jealousy, he decided to take revenge. As Soon as Galatea dived into the sea, Polyphemus took a large lava boulder and hunched it at the poor shepherd by crushing him. As Soon as Galatea heard the terrible news, she immediately rushed and wept all her tears over Aci's battered body. Jupiter and the gods took pity and turned the shepherd's blood into a small river that rises from Etna and flows into the sea just where the two lovers used to meet.
WHAT TO SEE IN ACIREALE?
The best Places to visit in Acireale are: Piazza Duomo, Basilica of San Sebastiano, the cathedral or Acireale, opera museum of the puppets, the Lemon riviera, the “Villa Belvedere and “La Timpa”.
ACIREALE FOOTBALL TEAM
Acireale is also famous for sport, especially football. Associazione Sportiva Dilettantistica Città di Acireale 1946 is an Italian association football club based in Acireale. They play in the Serie D national championship and since 1993 they have played their home games at ACI and Galatea. The social color of the club is the grenade and the symbol of the club is the lion. His best results are promotion and stay for two seasons in Serie B (1993-1994 and 1994-1995). Acireale also boasts many serie C championships considering that the grenades have played 22 championships between serie C and C1 and also 6 championships of serie C2. In the summer of 2014 the company will also acquire the historic Acireale logo.