Travel Stories | #3 Sicily – by Paul Corgan

How can you tell if someone is Sicilian or Italian? Just like vegans – don’t worry, they’ll tell you!

Sicilians culturally divorce themselves from Italians at every possible opportunity, and yet the same romance and ‘dolce far niente’ (the sweetness of doing nothing – the slow pace of life) that I’d experienced a decade before in Verona, Italy (the city of Romeo and Juliet in northern Italy) was undoubtably present in Sicily, too.

On my first day in the city of Palermo, I sat at a sidewalk wine bar and watched as red vespas zipped by and *Sicilians* sipped their vino so slowly that you may not even think they were drinking it at all (unlike me…).

As the sun began to set, I started up the street on my way home and wandered through an open gate into a beautiful botanical garden with colorful lights shining upwards on the trees. Under the canopy of the trees’ upper branches, was an al fresco restaurant and a small gelato shop. Children played, laughing as they ran through the grass and forest paths. It was idillic and I, of course, got gelato before heading home. (Interesting fact: in many parts of Italy or Sicily, it’s actually an arrestable offense to not consume gelato at least once a day)

Our month spent in Sicily was more of this. Romance (with the place, not interpersonally – at least not for me…), delicious food and wine, the calmness of summer by the sea – even if it was a big city. We went to the opera, we chartered sailboats and spent a day sailing around the island, we played soccer with the local kids at the beach (and were mocked in Italian by said children), we ate incredible food, and we wandered the endless maze of alleyway markets.

We also took the train around the island for a lovely weekend away in Taormina. If you don’t know it, Taormina is a beautiful cliffside vacation spot that gained even more fame after it was featured in the HBO show ‘White Lotus’ recently.

While visiting Taormina, we separated into two groups during the day. Many went for a wine tasting and lunch at a Mount Etna vineyard. But some of us opted for the adrenaline filled adventure of quad biking up the volcano instead. Both groups had a great day and we all met up for dinner and drinks followed by a night out in this picturesque Sicilian city.

After we returned home from Taormina and the month living in Palermo came to an end, a large group of us decided to spend the gap week (week after our normal trip) together and explore the Aeolian Islands north of Sicily – we explored Volcano and Stromboli which were incredibly beautiful!

In the Christmas song ‘Buon Natale’ by Nat “King” Cole, he sings,

The Aeolian Islands may be where he’s talking about.

If life was slow in Palermo, these islands were on a different clock altogether – maybe no clock at all. You can not imagine how unbelievably relaxing it was to be out there – real life just washed away. Highly recommend if you’re looking to totally disconnect and relax.

Note: I wrote above that the romance on this trip was with the places for me rather than another person, but this wasn’t true for everyone on the trip. As far as I know, three couples started dating during our time in Sicily and they’re all still together! Italy I mean *Sicily* really is the country of love.