Our Experience Sicily clients Eileen and Tony went deep into the earth’s surface with our expert Etna guides, when they entered a pitch black lava cave (Hence, the need for the hard hats and headlights.). Lava caves, also known as lava tubes, are formed during a volcanic eruption, when the outer part of lava flow…
Category: Nature, Seasons
Citron: A Big, Ugly Fruit
Take a second look! These are not lemons, but citrons, cultivated by my cousins Evelina and Salvo in their front garden. In Sicily between Christmas and the end of April, the landscape is in bloom with fragrant, juicy citrus fruits such as these. Cultivated for its thick, white, fragrant rind, citron makes an out-of-this-world marmalade…
Exhale With Your Family This July in Sicily
Take a deep breath and slowly exhale… That’s what I want to do when I see this countryside outside of Licodia Eubea, Sicily, where Experience Sicily is hosting an immersive, family-friendly 10-day travel experience in July. I, Allison Scola, will be your tour leader, and I’ll take care of all of the details so you…
I Wore It As A Sun Hat To Bring It Home From Sicily
Yesterday, when completing some home improvement projects, I remembered bringing home this lampshade from the island of Stromboli. I wore it as a sun hat to get it on the plane (convincing, right?)! The memory reminded me that each of these artisanal products pictured were made with river reeds: the lampshade, storage baskets of all…
The Clouds Part In Sicily
The clouds will part, and the sun will come out. Enna province, the center of Sicily
Shepherding My Spirit For What’s Next
Today, when I saw this shepherd with his sheep on the hillside as I drove across the middle of Sicily, I jumped out of the car hoping to record the splendid scene. It’s difficult to capture and communicate just how magnificent and green the island’s center is this time of year. Clouds, rain, and snow…
Trekking Amongst The Tombs In Sicily
I was blessed again today with the guidance of Nanni Di Falco, who led me through a small part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site know as the Pantelica Necropolis, a gorge cut into limestone by the Anapo and Cave Grande rivers that is dotted with hundreds of tombs from the 13th century BCE. It…
A Walk Through Thousands Of Years Of Human History In Sicily
Always on the move, today I took a hike in Sicily with Nanni, a nature and walking guide, through the Cava D’Ispica reserve, a deep gorge that follows a now, usually dried up river. Fresh, young, and emerald green Acanthus mollis plants (known in English as bear’s breeches) covered our trail, and scores of caves…
Sicily Is Dusted With Snow
Snow continues to cover the mountains, like San Calogero, pictured, over Termini Imerese. It’s put a damper on our plans today, to go southeast. Such weather is an anomaly in this semi-tropical climate, and the municipalities are not equipped to clean the roads of the ice and accumulation. We are all wrapped up, drinking hot…
Sicily’s Mount Etna Means Well
Sicily’s volcano Etna, pictured, has been displaying her power this week, both with eruptive activity and an earthquake, centered below the surface of the town of Viagrande on the south slope. Thankfully, the injuries from the quake were limited, and although there was damage to centuries old buildings in the village of Fleri, for example,…