[ July 2017 ] During our summer holiday in the south of Sicily in Italy, we went to Scicli and Modica by taxi one day.
The driver was Salvatore, who looked after us the day before, too.
When we arrived in Scicli, we saw that people were attending a funeral and Salvatore was greeting with some of 
them.
He seemed to have many interesting and dangerous experiences which could not be talked openly in order to live in the locality of Sicily.
He liked us for some reason and bought us glasses of almond milk which is a speciality around here.
It is a drink with the strong taste of Almond Tofu.
Scicli is one of the towns of UNESCO World Heritage “Late Baroque Towns of Val di Noto” and it is surrounded by three hills.
As in Ragusa, we saw many buildings with the particular balconies.
Salvatore is not a guide, but he said “Do not miss the church with the picture of the Christ wearing a skirt and another church with the statue of Virgin Mary on a horse”, so we looked for them.
First, Cathedral of San Giovanni.
It was built in 1776 in the Late Baroque style and one of the monuments of the World Heritage.
The interior was nice and bright, but the most interesting thing was the painting of the Christ wearing a skirt.
The proper name of the picture is “Crucifix of Burgos“.
In this dark painting, Christ was on the cross wearing a lady’s white skirt like a petticoat.
I looked up on the internet and found that this picture was inspired by a 17th century sculpture in Santa Maria of Burgos in Spain.
But I did not find what it meant.
Next, we went to Madre San Guglielmo church to see the Virgin Mary on a white horse.
It was a gallant looking statue with a sward in her hand.
Apparently in 1091 when the Normans were fighting against the Saracens, Virgin Mary appeared in front of people in this manner to encourage the Norman armies.
Even now every May, they have a festival called “Madonna a Cavallo (Virgin Mary on a horse)” and they take this statue out to the town and walk around.
According to an information on the internet, at the festival, they eat a cake called “Heads of Turks” made with the local Ricotta cheese.
So in this small town of Scicli, there is the feminine Christ wearing a skirt and the masculine Mary leading the fight.
Another attraction here is the HQ of the police where “Inspector Montalbano” works.
In fact, it is just a town hall building.
Montalbano is the famous Italian TV drama.
I have seen it only a few times but apparently it’s very popular.
Because they filmed it in many places in this part of Sicily, they have many tourists here from all over the world.
