"To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything."
"If Rome, Florence or Venice has stirred you to mingle ciao and wow in the same thought, then your appreciation of Italy will grow stronger in Sicily, the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, capped by active and awe-arousing Mount Etna — currently around 10,922 feet, the tallest volcano in Europe, and like other active volcanos it increases or decreases in height with eruptions. Indeed, Sicily’s allure can be spell-binding. After esteemed German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe jaunted around this triangular isle in the 18th century, he penned: "To have seen Italy without having seen Sicily is not to have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to everything."Astute words. By 750 BC, many Phoenician and Greek colonies thrived here, remaining for centuries. Then wars, revolts and cascades of rulers and influencers — Romans, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Byzantines, Normans, Arabs, Spaniards and dynasties of Hohenstaufen (from Germany), Anjou (from France), Habsburg (from Austria), among significant others — left indelible marks.
Hotspots & Cool Things to Do: Today, Sicily — an autonomous Italian region — showcases extraordinary architecture, cuisine, literature, music and arts of its melting-pot inheritance. Sicily’s must-see Valley of the Temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is a massive archeological treasure in Agrigento, and one of the important zones of Greater Greek art and architecture. The city of Palermo (heralding Teatro Massimo, an acoustically transcendent opera house that also presents ballets and concerts) and the golden-stone metropolis of Syracuse (birthplace of mathematician Archimedes) have collected cultural and culinary kudos aplenty. Amble the cobblestones of Ragusa for its painterly churches and palaces. At the base of Mount Etna, Catania’s structures are a medley of designs: some baroque with white ornamentation; others cloaked in a dark charcoal-gray palette from Etna's quarried lava. Messina, contoured like a sickle with a remarkable harbor and marina, is an active port for cruise ships and yachts. Visit also the vineyards and wineries of Marsala, the tuna-fishing villages and mesmerizing salt flats of Trapani, the Medieval walled town of Erice — perched approximately 2,460 feet above the sea — and the chocolate shops of Modica. It can be easy to fall in love with the singular beauty of chic Taormina, a legendary, celeb-magnet, cliff-side resort town of flower-bedecked, pastel-hued buildings along Medieval zig-zag streets. Taormina's ancient, monumental Greco-Roman theater — with pinch-me sea-and-volcano views — continues to be astonishingly in use today, arranging performances by leading international rock, classical and jazz musicians. Film festivals flourish, too. Cozy, sandy beaches with deluxe accommodations hug its shoreline. Taormina has besotted writers galore, including Truman Capote and D.H. Lawrence (the latter wrote Lady Chatterley’s Lover here). For buffs of the 1988 movie masterpiece, Cinema Paradiso (an Italian story of love, longing, family, ambition, censorship and freedom), carve out a day to traipse Cefalu, where director Giuseppe Tornatore filmed scenes. All over Sicily, souvenir hunters score hand-painted ceramic plates and ceramic Trinacria — a decorative item, usually a wall-hanging, shaped like a triangle to mimic Sicily (the Romans had called this island "star with three points"); it has a Medusa-like head of a woman, surrounded by three legs.
Foodie Finds: Devour Sicily’s delectable creations, such as pasta alla Norma (noodles with sauce of tomato, fried or sautéed eggplant, ricotta salata cheese and basil), cannoli (tubular pastry shells filled with sweetened ricotta cheese), arancini (fried risotto balls), cassata (sponge cake dressed with ricotta, chocolate, candied fruits, marzipan and festive royal icing), cassatelle alla Trapanese (soft crescents of dough plumped with ricotta, chocolate chips, then sprinkled with sugar and eaten while still warm from the oven) and sarde a Beccafico (sardines rolled in bread crumbs, garlic, parsley, pine nuts and raisins)."
www.forbes.com/sites/lauramanske/2018/02/11/5-gorgeous-getaways-to-inspire-your-vacation-fun-in-2018/#572c626234df
Experience Sicily with Just Sicily – The Island Specialist
