How long has Esplora Travel been running tours in Sicily? Esplora Travel has been running small group tours in Sicily since 2010. Over that time, the company has built up a considerable amount of experience and a network of contacts across the island, from restaurant owners to hoteliers to local guides. This article draws on…
One of my lockdown reads was “How Bad Are Bananas?: The carbon footprint of everything” by Mike Berners Lee. If you have not come across it, it is an excellent read and thoroughly recommended. It served, mainly, to confirm my place in Hell on account of the flights I have taken in the last few…
Many of our visitors to Sicily ask where they can find traditional Sicilian folk music. In this article we unearth some of the influences… I have to admit, I have always been a bit disappointed by musical culture in Sicily. It is certainly not as rich as some of the of the other Mediterranean islands, and…
Perhaps because of its connection to Nelson and a handful of English entrepreneurs, the story of wine-making in Marsala is well-known in the Anglo-Saxon world. On the other hand, the story of wine-making in Milazzo is virtually unknown. But perhaps it is all the more interesting… Scroll through the online catalogues of Sicilian wine and…
A “Via Francigena” – or road of the Franks – is a pilgrim route. The name derives from the main route from Canterbury, through France, to Rome used by devotional travellers during the Middle Ages. But although this is the origin of the term, not all pilgrims converging on Rome began their journey from Canterbury…
On the left hand side as you enter the Palatine Chapel in Palermo is a stone mounted on the wall, with an inscription. Or rather three inscriptions – one in Latin, one in Greek and one in Arabic. It is a graceful reminder of the multi-lingual nature of medieval Sicily. Greek had been spoken in…
Temples are perhaps the most iconic buildings the Ancient Greeks constructed. They are found throughout the Ancient Greek World: in Greece, Italy, Western Turkey and Libya. However, there are at least sixteen Greek temples remaining in Sicily – perhaps the highest concentration anywhere outside the Greek mainland. Furthermore, in the Temple of Concord at Agrigento,…
John Woodhouse and the birth of Marsala wine The story of Marsala wine is one that the English can lay some claim to having brought into existence. But whilst the name and the wine are known throughout the world, the families and dynasties that grew round it is populated with some of the most interesting…
My bank cards had all expired and their replacements sent to my address in Cambridge. My 13 month old Mac Book Pro had seized up in the week after lockdown was declared. And the impending rule of compulsory quarantine for those entering the UK from abroad was approaching. It was a sign that I had…
What could be a more typical Sicilian dish than a nice plate of pasta all norma? Some penne pasta topped with a tomato and aubergine sauce and finished off with some grated baked ricotta. One imagines it to be a recipe so old it could have been described by Al-Idrisi – Roger II’s Arab geographer…
