I fell in love with the Mediterranean while completing my Master’s degree through the College of New Jersey’s program on the island of Mallorca, Spain in the 1990s. The sunlight, mountains, sea, culture, restaurants, and history of the places around the Mediterranean are incredible. I’ve explored quite a bit of it during my lifetime. I was thinking of all of the places around the Mediterranean I’ve visited which include Malta, Valencia, the Croatian coast (Dubrovnik, Trogir, Split, Rovinj, Novigrad), Haldiki peninsula in Greece, Trieste, Cyprus, and of course, Mallorca.
I can now add the largest (25,000 km – the size of Massachusetts) and most populous island (5 million) in the Mediterranean, Sicily. It is just as beautiful as the other places I’ve visited. The Italians add incredible cuisine to the views. I see why so many tourists come here. I wonder how much HBO’s White Lotus helped tourism this summer from the USA here. I heard a lot of American accents. Being the largest island in a strategic position, Sicily has been populated by many people in its long history. I am reading John Julius Norwich’s Sicily: An Island at the Crossroads of History. Greeks, Romans, Germans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans and now the Italians have ruled over the island. It would be interesting to see a DNA analysis of Sicilians who lived here for many generations.
We stayed in the south-central part of the island for the first part of the week. The Mandranova Azienda Agricola is located just outside of Monte de Chiaro, which is close to the city of Agrigento. For the second part of the week, we were in Scopello, near the capital of Palermo in the northwest part of the island at an Air BNB.
Some parts of the island are not as picturesque as others and we are noticing some poverty. Sicilians have been emigrating from the island since the 1800s due to poverty and lack of economic opportunities. Today, an estimated 10 million people of Sicilian origin live around the world and 15% of the current residents have lived abroad sometime in their lives. The tourism and hospitality business is doing well here and I bet Sicilian wines and olive oil must do a brisk trade.
The one thing I do not like about the land Mediterranean is the lack of wilderness. Because it has been inhabited for so long, the original trees and animals of the region disappeared a long time ago. The result is a drier climate and in driving around the country, it could be compared to Iowa with agriculture replacing the ecological biomes. I know humans have greatly altered the natural world all over the globe, but here it is more prevalent than in North America. Vineyards and olive groves are romantic, but it would be nice to have more trees and the wild flora and fauna of the region.
A highlight of my trip to Sicily was the Zingaro Riserva Naturale Orientata. This is a protected coastal area located between San Vito lo Capo and Scopello on the Golfo de Castellammare. We hiked 10 kilometers round-trip from the south entrance of the park to the fifth beach from the entrance, Cala Dell’ Uzzo. As you can see from the photos below, the views are spectacular and it was nice to have a Mediterranean landscape not filled with buildings or farms. We took the coastal trail and I wish we would have had time to take the inland, mountain routes. Cala Dell’Uzzo was the most beautiful of the beaches. It was not too crowded in the morning, with people coming from the closer north entrance or boats dropping anchor in the small bay. There is another protected area west of Zingaro, Monte Cofano that would be nice to hike as well. It was quite hot and Nadia had quite the workout. The water was a godsend and refreshed us enough for the 5-kilometer walk back to the parking lot.
Some other nice things about the trip were our stay at the Villa Drago Air BNB. They had a hot tub and outdoor dining area that had spectacular views over the Mediterranean. We also had a delicious dinner in the old part of Golfo de Castellammare.
Another highlight was a visit to the Tenute Camilleri winery. Our good friends Claudiu and Vesna joined Nadia and me for wine tasting. The “Semprevento” white and “Terraranni” rosé were excellent. The owner Pepe showed us around the vineyards and gardens. He also shared photos of his family and I really felt we understood his life’s work. The setting sun, a slight wine buzz, and good company were great way to start the evening.
We met a nice Italian couple at the beach from Lake Como that summed up Sicily. “You cry twice when you visit Sicily. Once when you first arrive because of how beautiful it is and the second time when you leave because you ate too much.”
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