The old picture of the hard-done-by south, always seeing itself as the exploited victim with little much to offer other than organised crime, a declining population and poverty, is a picture that no longer applies. Sicily it is the largest island in the Mediterranean sea– and a very special one. It is closer to Libya and Tunisia than to Milan; it is too powerful, too culturally important, too modern to pretend to be a mere provincial, Mediterranean outpost. The Ancient Greeks performed their first improvised comedies in Syracuse, while the temples in Agrigento continue to provide a fascinating display of harmonious proportion.

Sicily sometimes seems like a continent unto itself, running at a different pace and according to different rules. Even the colours are different. Everything somehow seems more intense. Nowhere else are the cherry trees and prickly pears, the cucumbers and aubergines as bright and shiny. 

The colors of the Sicilian tradition will warm up your heart. The unmistakable taste local sweets will make your mouth watery!!!

The luxuriant cascades of bougainvillea, the spikey orange cactus fruit and the silvery-grey olive and knarled carob trees of the coastal regions provide a stark contrast to the sulphury, seemingly uninhabited countryside further inland with its waving fields of corn, overgrown paths, flocks of sheep and the macchia.

The variety of beaches is also quite considerable, ranging from fine sand along the north coast, such as the one framing the fishing town of Cefalù at the foot of the limestone Madonie mountains, to pebbly lava beaches on the Aeolian island of Lipari.

With blue grottoes below Taormina, and the Gola d’ Alcantara volcanic gorge, all the delights of the south are concentrated on Sicily.

 

Sicilia eterna – the slow-paced ‘eternal’ Sicily of old really does still exist.

A special thanks to Marco Polo -travel guide-