52 Reasons to Love Sicily | #33. Human Super Heroes

The blast, which registered on earthquake monitors, was the masterwork of the Sicilian mafia. Falcone was targeted because of his life’s work: arresting, holding accountable, and imprisoning those involved in the plague of organized corruption that had crippled Sicily for decades. Falcone and his fellow prosecutor, Paolo Borsellino, were super heroes, having risked (and subsequently…

Be Inspired Intellectually

Our small-group tours of less than 12 people offer travelers special opportunities to interact with locals–even if they only speak Italian and you only speak English. Between our local, English speaking guides and my cultural interpretation (both literally from the Italian language and conceptually, by discussing Sicilian culture with you through an American lens), we…

Power of the People 

25 years ago today, on May 23, 1992, at the location pictured left that now features this monument in Capaci, along Sicily’s autostrada between the Punta Raisi airport and Palermo, a half-ton of explosives were detonated under the highway killing anti-mafia magistrate Giovanni Falcone, his wife Francesca Morvillo, and his police detail including Rocco Dicillo,…

Celebrating Being Pizzo Free 

In 2004 in Palermo, a group of young men founded Comitato Addiopizzo, a nonpartisan, voluntary movement of merchants and consumers who en masse refuse to pay the “pizzo,” or protection money, to the Mafia. Following the philosophy that “A people that pays the pizzo is a people without dignity,” the cultural movement has swept the…