List of Details on My Ragusa-Ibla Trip on July 2001

Facts on Ragusa-Ibla From My Experiences

1.       Like  Paris, you face aggressive bus drivers and motor scooter and moped operators going

down the narrow streets. Sometimes some of those vehicles are pretty loud even though their engines may be small, so I had to prepare to hear backfires from some of the engines.

2.       Also like Paris, Ragusa-Ibla have international signs, especially for driving.

3.       Their local bus is almost always orange.

4.       Unlike Paris, Ragusa-Ibla’s sidewalks do not incline at the street level at all for people with

disabilities.

5.       Also unlike Paris, Ragusa-Ibla’s square have overhanging floodlights that go on at night.

Facts on Our Room In The Hotel (the L’Albergo Raphael)

1.       A very long, brown, sun-blocking curtain is at the window.

2.       The floor is tiled in a scale pattern with a lavender color

3.       There is a brown refrigerator, with the brand name called Elektrosuisse.

4.       There were two nightstands, white with pink trim, on the sides of the double bed.

5.  Since no laundry facilities for the public exist in the hotel, you do laundry in the bathroom on

your own, and at your own risk.

More Facts on Ragusa-Ibla

1.       The Scotch masking tape does even have a brand name labeled on that in that Italian region. The top roller sometimes gets stuck and sometimes the cutter does not cut the tape clearly.     

      

   

   2. The brand name of chewing gum there is Brooklyn, and I found that the spearmint flavor variety was the best kind.

3.       One bank has a closed-circuit magnetometer on its entrance doors to thwart bank robberies.

4.       When you get on the local bus, you put the white-green bus ticket into the fare stamper on

the “Lato Obbligatrice” side.

5.       At the Hotel Montreal, the breakfast area near the Via San Giuseppe closes at 10 a.m. to prepare for lunch.

More about the Pianos at the Hotels

A.      THE PIANO AT HOTEL MONTREAL

The notes on that piano only went up to an A8, and not to the highest notes, B or C. The piano

itself was about 10 feet by 11 feet range and had a tilted floor.

B.       THE PIANO AT HOTEL RAFAEL

        The piano was a black-colored studio upright, called Burger and Jacoby, of Biel. The keys

        on the piano were slightly rusted-through.

Broadwood Pianos on display at the Falcone – What I Saw

1.       The Broadwood spinet, one of the pianos that I saw at the concert hall, had two pedals. Its keys were rusted, and the black keys were slightly smaller. Upper part had a red curtain cover over the hammers, and its skin was dark brown, and the piano had a music stand. The pitch range of that piano was from an F1 to F8, something like in the period when Ludwig van Beethoven lived (1770-1827).

2.       Another Broadwood which I saw, which had a clavichord-like keyboard design, had the same range as the other Broadwood, with no pedals, and also had the music stand.

Its keys were rusted also, and the piano was on four legs.