Sicily

The ferry docked at 5:30 am in the capital city of Palermo, Sicily. Sicily, the largest Mediterranean island, is just off the "toe" of Italy's "boot." It has 4.5 million residents. Originally dominated by the Greeks, the island was passed on to the Romans and then the European powers during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Sicily has it own language known as Sicilian; it is a distinct Romance language similar to Italian, bearing significant Greek, Spanish, Arabic, Catalan, and French influences. Sicilian is mostly spoken in informal, family circles, while the predominant language spoken is a Sicilian-Italian mix. Most of the people we interacted with spoke some English, which was wonderful for us who have very limited Italian language vocabulary. A Sicilian guide told us that the word "organization" is not in the Sicilian vocabulary...we found out in our travels, that he was totally correct! We left Palermo in the dark and headed down the north coast. The coast is beautiful but the roads are a challenge.

The city of Palermo.

Cape Zafferano.

Coastal town of Termini Emersi.

Cefalu - named one of the most beautiful villages of Italy. It is a seaside town blending medieval history with stunning coastal views.

#1 Wow, kids were swimming and it is 63F/17C - the water felt freezing to me! #2 The pastries were amazing, so we bought a couple #3 And enjoyed them with wine on the beach...it was wonderful.

The streets of Cefalu.

The main square of Cefalu is dominated by the cathedral of Cefalu, which was erected between 1131 and 1240 in the Norman architectural style. This town was erected against a huge cliff which can be seen in the background.

We then left the coast and headed south through the mountains and rolling hills to Agrigento.

The prickly pear is a hallmark of wild vegetation in Sicily, it is growing everywhere. #1 To our amazement, we did pass fields and fields of planted prickly pear. We were told that the prickly pear is very important to Sicilians as they use is for gastrointestinal health. #3 This flower will develop a fruit in May which they get rid of, thus forcing the plant to flower again and develop a larger, more desirable fruit in October, which they harvest for consumption, export, and some is used for alcohol.

We visited Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples. It contains the remains of seven ancient Greek temples built in the Doric style, the largest concentration of these types of buildings outside mainland Greece. They stand within the ancient colony of Akragas, which covered 1300 hectares (3200 acres).

The Temple of Concordia.

#1 The temple of Concordia. #2 Pieces of the columns scatter the ground around the temples. #3 This god is apparently Zeus, reconstructed from the stones found in this area, he stands 30M tall and apparently held up part of the Zeus temple.

Temple of Hercules was believed to have been in this area but only the Tomb of Theron prevails. Legend proposes that Theron, the 5th century BC tyrant of Akragas, was buried there.

Sicily was mostly Greek-speaking for 1500 years. The first Greek settlers arrived almost 2800 years ago. They dominated the island for 500 years until the Roman conquest. However, the island maintained its Hellenistic culture during the 700 years of Roman rule. Moreover, after the Fall of the Roman Empire, the island was ruled by the Greek-speaking Byzantine Empire for another 400 years.

The city of Agrigento between the rocks of the temple.

We visited the Villa Romana del Casale, built in the 4th century AD and decorated with enchanting mosaics considered to be the most beautiful and best preserved of their kind.

The guard dog of the Villa - a very effective one at that!

The history of the Villa Romana del Casale begins around 320-350 AD: some scholars believe it belonged to a member of the Roman senatorial aristocracy, perhaps a governor of Rome under Emperor Constantine. It is a supreme example of a luxury Roman villa, graphically illustrating the predominant social and economic structure of its age.

Its decorative mosaics are exceptional for their artistic quality and invention as well as their extent as you can see from the following pictures. The villa was partially destroyed by the Normans and later almost completely covered by an avalanche of mud from Mount Mangone. The discovery of the villa is due to the archaeologist Gino Vinicio Gentili, who conducted excavations in the 1950s. 

The Great Hunt below covered a grand hallway floor of approximately fifty to seventy feet.

The Great Hunt: it is the most extensive example of its genre that has been passed down to us by antiquity and can be read as a great hunting manual, with an organic cartographic representation of the world as it was known at the time. It describes the imperial possessions in Africa, from Mauretania to Egypt, up to the far-off lands in the East, visual testimony to Rome's authority over the whole world.

We continued our travels north going around the base of Mount Etna to Taormina.

The volcanic soil and the special microclimate around Mt. Etna provides a fertile environment for many fruit, nut and olive groves. The dead fruit trees in the forefront were burnt in the 2023 fire, but the orchard beyond is in full bloom.

There are many varieties of oranges in Sicily but the four main varieties are: #Navelina - blonde skin; orange pulp. #Tarocco - yellow skin; red pulp. #Sanguinello - blood red skin; yellow, orange, deep red or streaky pulp. #Moro - ruby skin; black/violet pulp.

Sicilians boast that they grow every fruit known to humanity and only need to import bananas and pineapple. There are two food rules that no Sicilians break; cutting spaghetti with a knife and putting pineapple on a pizza! They won't put chicken on a pizza either as it is known as poor man's meat

There are 5 indigenous grape varieties grown only in the volcanic soil around Mt. Etna

Taormina is a hilltop town on the east coast of Sicily. This is the main square: Piazza IX Aprile.

From the square you can look down at the sea which is ~1KM below you.

Then turn and look up the mountain to the ruins of the castle sitting on the peak ~1KM above you!

#1 Part of the wall surrounding the historical old town of Taormina. #2 Dale enjoying gelato. #3 Fortress Duomo 14th century.

#1 South gate into the walled old town. #2 Main street in the walled old town. #3. North gate into the walled old town.

We drove further up the mountain to visit Castelmola, a quaint, lovely little village with a fantastic view of Mt. Etna.

MOUNT ETNA

The locals call her Big Momma and believe she is their protector.

This is Mt. Etna's south wall. This view shows the two active craters at the top. They are continually letting out steam which is good, as less likely to have a big eruption. Mt.Etna is 3304 M (10839FT). This is a new height as the lower of the two craters erupted and the lava flow at the top gave it a new height, surpassing the height of the other crater. Last year, 2024, there were 7 eruptions with lava flying 20 M into the air and the resulting black plume rises 20KM into the air, raining lava & ash down all over the area surrounding Mt.Etna. The lava rocks raining down are very dangerous, we seen rocks that had a diameter of 8 feet, to rocks the size of pebbles. On Feb 8, 2025 a new fissure opened between the two active craters on top and lava flowed until Feb 28th.

This is Mt. Etna's north east wall. Miles of lava fields. This is the lava flow from an eruption in 2002. It is 10M thick and stayed hot for 8 years. We are at the level of where pines grow. We traveled through the oak trees, then pine trees, then white birch (indigenous to Mt. Etna). You can see the white birch in the picture below.

I was fascinated at the information shared about the microclimate of Mt. Etna. The lower levels are so fertile but where does the dirt come from? Apparently, the volcanic rock does slowly break down into volcanic sand but a lot of the sand comes from Africa with the strong winds they often get, weird hey! The cloud bank up giving lots and lots of rain. Another interesting tidbit - the smoke from the eruptions drifts out over the Iconium sea and settles down to the sea bottom where it releases minute amounts of titanium which in turn increases phytoplankton, which increases the fish numbers which in turn gives more food to the Sicilian people.

We explored a Lava Tube - it is a roofed conduit through which molten lava travels away from its vent. If the lava in the tube drains out, it will leave an empty cave/underground channel. The hole above was discovered 280 years ago. The channel stays at 10 degrees C all year. Water was dripping through into the cave from the snow melt above. Lava rock is so porous that the water from the snow melt goes straight into the ground, thus the many underground streams.

We are inside a crater which erupted in 1865 and this is the eruption hole. We are at 2900M. You can also see the steam at the top of Mt Etna, although it looks like cloud!

There are approximately 300 craters around Mount Etna; mostly from lateral eruptions (my understanding of a lateral eruption is when there is a weak area or a pressure buildup in the main Mt. Etna magna flow and some lava finds a different pathway out and erupts.) Once they have erupted, they never erupt again. There are two craters in the forefront of this picture, the black one and the one behind with a smattering of snow, then Mt. Etna in the background.

Moving on down the mountain to Alcantara Gorge.

Alcantara Gorge is a canyon made ​​of black lava walls up to 50 meters high.

There is no certainty of which events gave rise to the Alcantara Gorges. It is believed that in prehistoric times there had been an exceptional lava eruption from Etna that flowed into the current site of the Gorges. What happened next is still the subject of studies.

The black lava is seen in the typical shape of a prism that the rocks take during the cooling process.

The city of Catania was our last stop before flying onto Greece. Catania lives in the shadows of Mount Etna, which has been risky business for it in the past but not recently. Catania has been buried by lava 17 times in its long history, creating successive archeological layers. In 1669, Mt. Etna erupted and produced lava flows that destroyed at least 10 villages on its southern flank before reaching the city walls of the town of Catania five weeks later and covering it. So under the current city, one can find the Roman city, which, in turn, is built on the Greek city, etc. During World War II., Catania was the target of heavy Allied bombing due to its two German airfields; it suffered 87 raids, significantly damaging parts of the city.

Bellini Gardens

Universita Degli Studi Di Catania (University of Catania)

Piazza Duomo

Cathedral of Saint Agata

Teatro Massimo Bellini

We were caught in traffic for over 1 hr on the freeway...this is what happened...when life gives you oranges, make orange juice. Of course, that was lemons wasn't it!

What you can't see well is the interchange road above, everyone drives ridiculously fast and so I am sure this truck took the corner too fast and ended up over the side, down onto the freeway.

So let's close this blog on drivers and roads. First we asked about the signs everywhere that say speed is being electronically monitored, but everyone is flying past us! Our guide laughed so hard and told us the signs aren't true and most policemen only ticket motorists that are speeding over 130kph. The fine is hefty at 400-600 euro but over 200 kph the fine is 1000 euro. He said there is a joke in Sicily that someone can be driving over the speed limit with their phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other, and the police don't even notice them. Now for the roads, we never found a freeway that didn't have 1 lane closed, a bridge that didn't have any holes beside the expansion joints, not to mention the freeways that stopped dead with some cones across and detoured you somewhere else....no warning except for a speed limit signs that decreased over 1km. They never seem to fix an issue; just place a cone or some fencing around the problem and life goes on. Let's not talk about rural roads, sometimes we were four wheel driving to get through all the holes and bumps.

City driving is chaos, close your eyes and hope for the best. Anyway, thankfully we managed to return our little car in the same condition we picked it up in.