Augusta on Sicily
Friday, 30 March 2018 - 11:00 am (CET/MEZ) Berlin | Author/Destination: European Union / Europäische Union General
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Baia Arcile © Angelo Pappalardo/cc-by-sa-3.0
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Augusta is a town and comune in the
province of Syracuse , located on the eastern coast of
Sicily . The city is one of the main harbours in Italy, especially for oil refineries (
ExxonMobil and others as part of the complex
Augusta-Priolo ) which are in its vicinity. The city is situated 35 km north of
Syracuse and faces the
Ionian Sea .
The old town is an island, made in the 16th century by cutting an isthmus and is connected to the mainland by two bridges. One bridge was built recently (Viaduct Frederick II of Swabia ) and the other built when the city was founded and is called the Spanish Gate . Augusta is home to two ports.
Castello di Brucoli © panoramio.com - trolvag/cc-by-sa-3.0
Founded 27 centuries ago,
Megara Hyblaea is one of the oldest Greek colonies of Sicily. It was destroyed by its rival Syracuse, was raised from its ruins, then taken by the Romans together with Syracuse during the Second Punic War. It remains an archaeological site, a testimony of the organization of a Greek colony of the Archaic period. Upon the ruins of one of its suburbs, Xiphonia, the city of Augusta was founded in 1232 by
Emperor Frederick II . After the
Angevin domination , it became part of
Aragonese Sicily and, from 1362, it was a fief of Guglielmo Raimondo II Moncada. It returned to be a royal possession (under Spain) in 1560, and was extensively fortified to counter
Turkish pirates .
In 1675 its harbour was the site of a
naval battle between the Dutch-Spanish and the French fleets. The town suffered a major earthquake and tsunami in
1693 . During
World War II , Augusta was
invaded on July 13, 1943 by the
Eighth Army of the
Allied troops led by the British
General Montgomery . The city houses a great number of churches, the Convent of the Domenican Fathers, and the Castello Svevo (Hohenstaufen Castle, built c. 1232). The castle has a square plan of a 62-metre (203 ft) side length, with eight towers.
Read more on
Augusta ,
Wikivoyage Augusta and
Wikipedia Augusta (
Smart Traveler App by U.S. Department of State -
Weather report by weather.com -
Johns Hopkins University & Medicine - Coronavirus Resource Center -
Global Passport Power Rank -
Democracy Index -
GDP according to IMF, UN, and World Bank -
Global Competitiveness Report -
Corruption Perceptions Index -
Press Freedom Index -
World Justice Project - Rule of Law Index -
UN Human Development Index -
Global Peace Index -
Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index ). Photos by Wikimedia Commons. If you have a suggestion, critique, review or comment to this blog entry, we are looking forward to receive your e-mail at
comment@wingsch.net . Please name the headline of the blog post to which your e-mail refers to in the subject line.
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