Sicily Sicily Sicily Sicily Sicily

Monday, September 26^th, 5.30 a.m. Alarm clock rings. Press snooze. Roll over. No, no, no! Get up! Get dressed, brush your teeth, check your documents, make a sandwich. It's time to go. Sicily, here I come! Ok, here we come!

Having bought the tickets for Trapani weeks and weeks ago I was (im)patiently counting down the days. Not having a lot to do gave me way too much time to think about my future travellings, especially Sicily, and I was really looking forward to a change of environment, people, atmosphere … and Sicily was a perfect choice for what I wanted, plus the fact that we were all going (all = Burcu, Marta, Kristiāna, Léo + me) made everything even more exciting.

After arriving at the Trapani airport we went to get the car we had rented online. A more-or-less new Ford Fiesta was waiting for us and we quickly took care of formalities, stuffed our luggage in the trunk and set off. Within five minutes Sicily already grew on me. Wild, sort of arid landscape, dotted with olive trees and vineyards on one side and bright blue sea on the other is absolutely my cup of tea. Our first destination was Erice, a little mountain village, as charming as little Italian villages can be. It somehow reminds of San Gimignano, yet still it has a different flavour. While walking narrow paved streets I soon spotted a pasticerria with an abundance of typical Sicilian sweets from cannoli to cassata. If you're on a diet, Sicily is no place for you. Every village and town, no matter how small, has a pasticerria where you can try such delicious sweets they take you to a different dimension. Cannoli, a roll filled with ricotta cream and candied fruit, is extremely luscious, but nothing can beat cassata siciliana. Cassata is made of a special type of sponge, pan di Spagna, then filled with ricotta cream, topped with a usually green marzipan layer and decorated with candied fruit. The combination of flavours exceeded my expectations. There's also some kind of a smaller version of cassata – cassatina and I had three of those – one in Siracusa, one in Trapani and one in Taormina. They were all a dash different, but still very very very tasty. Another Sicilian speciality is marzipan paste, often shaped and coloured like fruit. I think there's no point in losing time on describing how good ice-cream in Sicily is; the photo is pretty self-explanatory. However, balancing all this sweetness, Sicily also offers lovely fish and sea-food dishes and, of course, pasta. Well, I think you know what I want to say – visiting Sicily is an absolute culinary delight.

Leaving Erice we headed to Segesta, a little village with an ancient temple and a Greek theatre. Taking a break in the middle of mountains was a perfect late-afternoon energy refill. I was actually very keen on visiting the Greek theatre also, but as it was on the other side of the mountain and it was already almost half past five, there was no time. I was thinking, well, there's another one in Taormina and another one in Siracusa. There will be more opportunities to see at least one of them. Back on the road we headed to a hostel close to Palermo, in Sferracavallo. It took as quite a while to find the hostel as it was already dark when we reached Palermo and with the streets being very clearly marked (not!) we had a bit of a difficulty finding the right way. However, we eventually found our hostel, which was located right by the sea. We actually picked the very best day to visit Sferracavallo as there was a local feast with fireworks and a late-night market, but 15 hours of travelling took its toll and we went back to the hostel soon after midnight.

Segesta

Sferracavallo

Tuesday was the Palermo day. Waking up to a rainy morning didn't promise a lovely day, but the anticipation of visiting Palermo put away all negative thoughts. For a while, at least. It was raining on and of all the time, but still we got a chance to admire the town. I think I was most amazed by the theatre, Teatro Massimo, probably due to its role in the The Godfather 3 movie. 

Palermo

When we got back to the car, it had started to rain again. We were then actually quite successful at finding our way out of Palermo, but at some point, we didn't know which way to go, so the best way was to ask a local. Asking the locals for the way usually turned out great as Sicilians are extremely kind, warm, open and helpful. As I went to ask two people selling fruit on the street which way was right for Cefalù, they explained me perfectly, but started to laugh when I said, Yeah, ok, so when we get to the second round-about, there'll be directions for Cefalù, right? They just said, Ha, you're in Palermo, there are no directions! I also bursted out laughing. So, we continued our trip according to the directions I got, but the rain was getting heavier and heavier. Finally, we had to turn our car as the road we were taking was basically flooded. When I saw one of the newer BMWs trying to pass a huge puddle, which seemed like a lake to me, and having water almost up to the windows, I started to panic a bit. The rain just wouldn't stop, the level of water on the road was only increasing and finding a right way to get out of a Sicilian town isn't a piece of cake. We turned the car around, took another road, drove the wrong way on a one-way road, turned the car around again and finally got on the highway. I was relieved. Really relived. Even though it was still raining cats and dogs, at least we were on the right way. By the time we reached our camping close to Cefalù, it almost stopped raining. We made pasta, took a walk and took a swim in the unexpectedly warm Sicilian sea. We visited Cefalù in the evening and decided to visit it also the next morning which turned out as a great decision. Cefalù by night is namely a bit of a ghost town, but in the morning it was buzzing all over. We soon headed towards Taormina, but first we stopped at Etna. I wasn't expecting a magnificent view on the volcano and my expectations were right. Etna was overcast when we reached one of the excursion start-points north of the volcano. It was, however, despite the bad weather, quite impressive to see it, all the volcanic rocks, signs of how lava flows destructed the landscape … People that work in the souvenir shops at this excursion start-point explained everything about the most recent eruptions. One of the guys even took loads of photos of the 2002 eruption and I was quite speechless as I was imagining all the lava flows, bursting out of calderas. We didn't stay long at Etna as it was cold, 12°C, so we headed back via a very serpentine road (which made me sooo sick) towards Taormina. Despite of how much I liked Taormina, as it is again one of those little charming mountain villages, it felt too touristy for my taste. It's also possible I was feeling too tired to really admire its beauty or maybe it was simply just too full of people. However, again, I wasn't able to see the Greek theatre as we were too late. 20 minutes too late. Being a bit disappointed I was thinking I can see the theatre close to Siracusa (I was wrong, of course). Late in the evening we reached Catania, which is now my favourite Sicilian town. It's not enormous, but big enough, it has a great fish market, its architecture is extremely beautiful, plus, it's at the seaside and within an hour drive south you can reach breath-taking beaches. Roaming the streets of Catania by night and by day, the next morning, gave me that perfect holiday feeling. I was surprised how cheap food and drinks are – a cocktail €4,50, pint of beer around €2. Unbelievable. Also food isn't expensive and in bakeries they have real bread – with a dash of salt and so soft your heart melts when you eat it. After five months of eating Tuscan bread I almost forgot what a pleasure it is to eat this kind of a bread. Sicilian bread. Lovely, seriously lovely.

(from left to right, clockwise)

our private beach, Cefalù, Etna, Taormina, Etna, Cefalù

Catania; Ari Trezza - the Cyclops Coast (bottom right corner)

Having a bit of a bad luck with the weather we didn't exactly get as much sun as we'd wanted, but the last two days were sunny and hot and we definitely wanted to get to a beach, sunbathe and take a swim. We headed north of Catania hoping to reach a sandy beach, but we had no luck, so we headed south direction Siracusa where we, after a while, got to a quite empty beach in Arenella. After a few hours of relaxing on the beach we had to find a hostel. We had no place booked for our last night as we kept out accommodation side as flexible as possible. Eventually we found some kind of a hostel or a house or a B&B close to Enna. We had no idea what kind of a place it would be. As Marta would say, with the universe being on our side the whole trip, our last night turned out more than perfect. We were staying in a B&B on the countryside, basically in the middle of no where. There were big beds, fresh towels, clean bathrooms and hot water. The owners of the B&B also have horses, two sheep (which think they're dogs, so they run after cars all the time), four dogs, two cats and a load of geese. The atmosphere was so warm and relaxed, I could stay there for another day or two or three. They also had fig, orange and pomegranate trees. I slept like a baby and in the morning we had such an awesome breakfast I thought I had died and have gone to heaven. We also rode the horses, pet the dogs and cats and hung out with the owners. 

Arenella, Siracusa, Siracusa (top)

Sacchitello (bottom)

Even though we didn't want to leave this little paradise, we didn't have a choice. We headed to Trapani, which was a lovely surprise after driving through its bland suburbs. After having lunch (pasta for €4) we quickly visited the historic centre, had a few sweets and we were back on the road for the last time. Destination: Trapani airport. 

Trapani

After returning the car there was nothing left to do except waiting for the plane and reminiscing all the lovely moment we had and watching the photos on our cameras. One thing was clear: we're definitely coming back!