Hi welcome to this English lesson and we're going to start with a question for
you and I'll give you the answer at the end this place here in Sicily called
cefalu was the setting for quite a large part of quite a famous film now a
clue it's not the one that you think but maybe you can guess from the pictures
maybe you will recognize which film was filmed in part in this city cefalu
Cefalu is in Sicilia the island known in english as Sicily this video is
the first in a new playlist of english lessons based on reviews so that could
be travel reviews like this one restaurant reviews book reviews film
reviews theater reviews but based on reviews so sicily famous for the Mafia
but you don't see that normally this was my second visit to Sicily I've never
seen any sign of the Mafia but then I guess perhaps they're the kind of
organization that operates obviously in a very kind of underhand way beneath the
surface if something is underhand then it's not honest if something happens
beneath the surface then it is hidden so this is one of the lovely streets of
chaff Alou one of the labyrinthine little alleyways that dominate this town
labyrinthine means relating to a labyrinth and a labyrinth is like a maze
one of those things that you go in as a child and you get lost and you can't
find your way out there like a game really but in an actual city of course
the game is for real so this is a typical street scene from Schieffelin
and again which might help you guess about the film that I referred to
another street scene from chef aloo this incidentally was the street outside our
holiday apartment where we stayed I'm gonna tell you a little bit about
the wonderful apartment that we stayed in later on so this was the main square
in shuffle ooh it's a very scenic square scenic means it looks very beautiful
there are a wide variety of cafes and to be honest none of them seemed too
touristy the prices were not exorbitant given the beautiful setting if a price
is exorbitant it means it's extremely high very unreasonable and that it does
not provide good value for money so the prices were not exorbitant I actually
got my Barnack cut in a barber's that you can see in the right hand side of
this particular photograph Barnett is a slang word for hair and I have to say
the Italian barber hmm he seemed to cut my hair with rather more Flair than an
English barber so a barber is somebody who cuts a man's hair and flair means
real style is what that means so this another part of that big square this is
the old Norman Cathedral of Palermo which dominates the skyline there if
something dominates then it is the most obvious thing
skyline really just means what you see when you look up chef Alou is a beach
town on the north coast of Cecilia north coast of Sicily nice sandy beaches
gently sloping into the sea so it's one of those seas where you can stand up for
quite a long way swimming there seems extremely safe there were no jellyfish
or anything dangerous like that so quite an extensive beach area very pretty the
weather at least for the time we were in shuffle ooh was really beautiful very
pleasantly warm days things changed later on in the
holiday when we went to Palermo we'll have a look at the trip to Palermo in
the next video but this is a great beach area for kids so if you have kids and
you want somewhere kid-friendly then this is a great place to go chello
another beach scene sorry the photo isn't really in focus of a beach scene
at night taken from a beach bar ah they have a few beach bars that are quite
nice and pleasant to relax in I do have to say though that if you're the kind of
night owl who loves kind of banging parties at night Cefalu is probably
not the place for you it's a resort aimed more at families so a night owl is
a kind of informal expression in English for a person that is most active at
night and I used the adjective banging saying banging parties ...if a party is
banging this is just slang to mean it's a really lively party or maybe something
in a nightclub but they are not things that you will really find here in Cefalu
which is a family-friendly resort so you remember earlier on I mentioned that the
street scene was from outside our apartment this ladies and gentlemen is
the view from our apartment pretty special huh as you can possibly see the
apartment has actually been hewn into the rock this verb to hew in English
means to carve something out to chop something out in this case they would
have had to use axes to chop into the rock that is part of the old town wall
of Cefalu to create some of these apartments with the result that you have
an absolutely amazing view over the beach and out to sea and really just an
absolutely breathtaking view absolutely stunning as you can see
really are right by the beach so you can just open the door and just lie back and
enjoy the wonderful mellow sounds of the see if something is mellow then it's the
opposite of intense it's kind of calm and it's the kind of thing that makes
you feel relaxed so the mellow sounds of the sea incidentally I will add in the
comment section of this video some information about the apartment where we
stayed should any of you be tempted to stay somewhere with such a wonderful
view it's a great place for a romantic break or something like that this is one
of the views from up above chef aloo you saw earlier that Norman
castle well if you go up behind that Norman castle there's a beautiful wooded
area interesting for children there's some nature up there some goats which
we'll see in a minute and this is the view down from the hilly wooded area a
wooded area simply means an area with lots of trees this is a view as well
also making your way up but in this case towards the lighthouse opposite the
lighthouse just outside chef aloo you will find some really good restaurants
there's some great food are on this island this is the road up behind the
Norman castle into the wooded area you can just about make out some goats
lots of mountain goats live up there so that's really something quite exciting
for children the food the food of caecilia is is really good very
enjoyable flavorsome cuisine the staple foods on the island include fish like
tuna and swordfish and the key vegetable ingredient is uber
jeans they are absolutely head over heels for over jeans in Sicily so when I
said the staple foods I mean the foods that seem to be eaten
most often tuna swordfish over jeans tomatoes herbs like mint and of course
pasta and pizza and Sicilies own version of pizza called Sfinicone
which we will talk about in the next lesson when we look at my trip to
Palermo this is one of the restaurants opposite a lighthouse a nice tuna steak
fresh carrots and an apple caponata caponata is a kind of sweet and sour
Sicilian dish based on Ober jeans with things like capers and olives and often
other vegetables the cuisine of Sicily well worth trying this is a restaurant
white right opposite our apartment is supported didim cheats you a very good
restaurant a little bit quirky quirky means unusual
but in a good way here is some evidence of one of the items of quirkiness this
was the starter given out before every meal it's simply a hard-boiled egg a
piece of toast of some anchovy and a small shot of a sweet Sicilian wine next
to us in the restaurant one evening were some other English guests and they did
the traditional English guest thing of basically embarrass themselves and
everybody else saying oh my dude we can't eat that
we can't have an egg as a starter that's so unusual
English people are not the world's most adaptable eaters they are really finicky
on the whole if you are adaptable then you are willing to change and try new
things if you are finicky then you're very
fussy there are lots of things that you don't like or that you won't
try so I hope you have enjoyed this video if you have please subscribe but
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if you have any questions about English haha spot the deliberate mistake there
if you have any questions about English or about Sicily and this trip please put
them in the comment section below this video now the answer to the question
that I posed earlier Cinema Paradiso I don't know if you any of you ever saw
that film but the plot was about somebody who got all nostalgic for a
beautiful village where they grew up if you get nostalgic it means that you
develop the feeling that you really want something from the past so this person
was nostalgic for their beautiful village where they grew up and they use
chaff Alou to film several of the scenes for this video so that's it I hope you
enjoyed it and see you next time goodbye