When I think of my favorite place on earth, that is Sicily.

I might be biased, but even with some rational thinking I can just see a region packed with culture, flavours, smells, smiles, sun, life. How can that not be the best place on earth? (Yeah, I know, I AM biased, the world is all special)

Due to my thesis deadlines, this year we went on holiday quite late – surviving thousands of instagram and facebook posts of friends having a blast and happily laying on the beach. But it was definitely a new way of experiencing Sicily, in its more calm and less touristy mood. We stayed at my place for 5 full days, basically that was just enough to scratch the surface of sicilian wonders.

We landed in Catania late on Saturday evening, we rented a lovely cinquecento with Maggiore and we headed to our simple B&B in Siracusa (Il pianista sul mare). The day after, a random walk through the maze of Ortigia made us slowly get into the sicilian calm mood. Between an arancino, a calzone ripieno and a few ice creams and granitas, we happily reached the end of the day, when we hit the road first towards Riserva Naturale di Vendicari (GO THERE PLEASE! Such a calm and natural spot, where the birds are the owners and you feel just a little guest. We even saw pink flamingos!!) and then to Gela – our base site.

From there, every day we did a small trip: first an afternoon in Agrigento, with its superb Temple Valley (honestly, much better preserved than the one in Athens). Then one day in Ragusa Ibla, a lovely bunch of houses built on a hill from whose top the view is incredible in its simplicity – recommended to go up to the top, but you need to be in shape! On day 3 we visited Scicli, on the same style of Ragusa but even more authentic (I would choose this one between the two, if I did not have enough time to visit both) – and there we had an OMG ice-cream served by a lady whose kindness was not of this century (Candiano Cremeria Gelateria, Via Nazionale 36, Scicli). The highlight of the day was the chat with Nino u lanternaru, whose sweet smile and innumerable past memories and souvenirs made us appreciate humanity a bit more. He even posed for us:-) The last visit was to the Scalata dei Turchi, just past Agrigento, where we enjoyed one of the most unique natural spots of the island with very, very few tourists compared to what I remembered! Bear in mind that it is very windy on the top of the rock, so contact lenses are best avoided. We soaked in the small natural pools for a while (the water temperature on the 20-something of September is definitely not the one I experienced in July, i.e. almost impossible for me to go in the water! My sweet half was more adventurous, at the price of blue lips), then back to the base. On our last day, an half-a-day visit to Caltagirone offered us beautiful views (should I stop saying that?), a neverending climb on the famous ceramic-decorated staircase (Staircase of Santa Maria del Monte) and very nice graffitis on the walls of the high-town -they are worth a look! We then headed towards Montedoro, a minuscule village in the very heart of Sicily and which brought us back in time of a few decades.

On the Friday we headed to Palermo, passed by the famous (and deserted 😮 !) Mondello beach, where we stopped for  a last (and unfortunately not-so-great) arancino at a bar on the seaside, and then back to the airport for the end of our beautiful trip.

Now we have a list of other 20+ spots to visit there.
We will come back, Sicily, this is a promise!