Sometime during my teenage years my mom started a new Christmas Day tradition of watching the Godfather movies after opening presents while preparing the Christmas night meal. Other families watch basketball or It’s a Wonderful Life, we had the Corleones. So before this last week, most everything I knew about Sicily and Sicilians came from the Godfather trilogy. After spending a week on the island of Sicily I now know why Michael volunteered to knock off the Police Chief and go to Sicily for a year! It’s a truly beautiful landscape with amazing food, weather and people.
We spent time on the east coast seeing Taormina, Syracuse, climbing Mount Etna and exploring some of the smaller eastern side towns. Taormina is a beautiful resort town but a bit too overrun with tourists for me. We really enjoyed Syracuse. It has a magnificent piazza and many pretty baroque buildings and churches. Luke and I especially liked the interactive Leonardo De Vinci museum they had. Suzanne loved buying fresh cherries, blood oranges and strawberries in the street markets. Luke’s Italian is coming along well. Check out him buying strawberries from this guy!! Can you tell how many he just bought??
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Next we visited Cefalu. This is a beach town on the northwest coast of Sicily. It had a beautiful old cathedral and picturesque old town. Sue found a great little apartment near the beach and we had perfect weather so we enjoyed a few afternoons of beach time. Call it our late Spring Break. We really needed some downtime after that tough week working on the farm (cue the eye roll). Cefalu was a neat little town. I hope to go back. The little lanes and beautiful sunsets make it pretty special.
Finally we finished with just one day in Palermo. Our expectations were low for Palermo. We were expecting a hectic and gritty city where we felt we would have to be on guard and worry about mobsters and criminals all around (maybe that last part is a bit of an exaggeration). However we left saying Palermo is a very intriguing and hipster city. Looks and feels sort of like Brooklyn.
The best part of Sicily above the beautiful towns, beaches and churches was the food! I have had a lot of Italian food but this week blew me away. Our family is now in love with real Sicilian cannoli, not the imitations we get back in the U.S. I think arancini is on my new favorite foods of the trip list. These are deep fried balls of rice stuffed with meat and cheese in the middle. Wow! My spleen sandwich and Sue’s eggplant caponata in Palermo were great finales to our Sicilian food tour.
I would encourage anyone who has already been to the major sites of Italy to put Sicily on your wish list for a future trip. It is a very friendly and beautiful place and at no point did I think someone was going to blow up my car.
If you haven’t seen the Godfather movies then this post may seem very random. I apologize.
Rule #1 when in Sicily: Never, never let Fabrizio pack the luggage… Have really enjoyed following your adventures via the blog. What an experience for all of you, as well as for those you have met on the journey. Safe travels over the summer, and look forward to catching up on your return.
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Lol. Yes, great rule. Thanks for keeping up with us. Look forward to catching up in August. Hope you guys have a great summer.
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Luke:
I liked the race car track and you standing on the wall. What a neat picture! I see you have visited some really cool places and they all seem fun. What’s been your favorite?
Love, Charlie
Luke:
Have you seen any cool instruments on your trip? We just had our strings concert today.
Love, Reese
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Charlie, My favorite stop has still been the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Reese, We haven’t sent any different instruments than back home, but I enjoyed beating the drum while singing with my friends at the orphanage in Kenya! Thanks for writing! Luke
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Rule #2, when you hear someone yelping like a donkey, they are coming for you! Great post. I’ve always been fascinated with Sicily. We didn’t have the same Christmas tradition but I certainly learned a lot watching the re-runs by my father. Keep an eye out for Luca Brasi….
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It’s funny how many classic lines come from those movies. Hope you guys have an awesome camp summer. Can’t wait to catch up when we are both back in Athens.
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