Why there is much more to Sicily than Mount Etna
There’s a pleasing edginess to Italy’s biggest island, our writer discovers, with its volatile volcano, Mafia stories, and a sluggish rail service. But the only risk a traveller really faces is over-indulging on its delicious cuisine
I hadn’t expected ladybirds. They stand out bright against the black and grey rock of Mount Etna. Drawn here on migration winds, they and clumps of pink wildflowers are surprising points of colour on the inhospitable slopes.
A cable car on the south side of the volcano goes part way to the summit, but I’m taking a walking tour on its less-frequented northern flank. We start 1,800 metres above sea level where a couple of extinct craters are accessible photo stops.
Leaving the road behind, our small group traverses a lumpy lava field, avoiding scuffing our ankles against the glass-like edges of the protrusions, then we rise onto slopes where tiny pumice fragments, some spewed by the volcano just months before, lie deep around us. Our guide digs with his hands to surprise us with a patch of snow buried beneath.
It’s heavy going, like climbing a sand dune made of peppercorns. Our hiking poles push against our sinking environment and the guide teaches me to make small steps and use the footprints of the person in front. Our descent later will be much easier, sliding and laughing, our boots filling with ash.
We’re alone now in the landscape and the views are spectacular – undulating layers of black and grey punctuated by spongey cacti with hidden needles. “Pins!” yells the guide as two hours in I forgetfully slump towards a patch for a pitstop.
He turns our attention to the view across a valley. “Good morning! You’re late getting out of bed today,” he comments fondly as Etna’s smoking summit finally throws off a sheet of cloud.
My Etna ascent is a childhood dream and the culmination of a week’s holiday on Sicily. I’ve limbered up by pounding cobbled streets in search of the best trattorias. A three-centre plan has taken my husband and I along the coast to Taormina then Cefalu and back to airport and Etna gateway Catania. Getting around, we’ve swerved spiralling fuel costs and reduced our emissions by using trains.
HILLTOP HISTORY LESSON
In Taormina, the steep restaurant-lined lanes are good training for Etna. We level out in the town centre and cross the checked paving of the cliffside Piazza IX Aprile to spy the volcano across the sparkling Mediterranean.
In the middle of the day this gem of a town is awash with cruise ship parties, so morning or late afternoon are the sweet spots for visiting the glorious Teatro Antico.
Ancient Greeks positioned this lofty amphitheatre for maximum views and despite somewhat insensitive Roman adaptations you can see the sea and smoking Etna through the crumbled arches behind the stage. The space is still used for performances, and we catch a band’s sound check booming against the stonework.
Taormina is undeniably beautiful, but it’s compact and busy, and a taxi or cable car is needed between the small beach and town. After two nights we are glad to take the coastal railway to Cefalu.
Sicily’s trains are sluggish and timetable gaps wide, but our roughly four-hour journey, including a change at Messina, rarely drags. The carriages are modern and comfortable and we’re avoiding the midday heat. What’s more, it only costs around €13 each.
At dusk in Cefalu I watch swallows shrieking and diving over the 12th-century cathedral as I enjoy an Aperol spritz with complementary nibbles in the square below. The surrounding streets are narrow and atmospheric. Striped blinds shade apartment balconies, and kiosks set into the old walls serve up gelato or Sicily’s prized rolled pastry dessert cannoli. A greengrocer’s truck rumbles by announcing its arrival with music. In the evening I enjoy a perfect swordfish tagliatelle at a table set in a quiet alley.
Our arrival overlaps with a public holiday so the small beach backed by the old town, which features in well-loved film Cinema Paradiso, is packed. However, it doesn’t stop us wading into the shallow waters or joining the throng catching an epic sunset from the rocks to its west.
RESISTING THE MOB
The resort is under an hour by train from Sicily’s capital Palermo. Day trips are offered from this city and others to The Godfather filming locations but instead we choose a tour about Mafia resistance.
We start outside the huge Teatro Massimo opera house. Location for the closing scenes of The Godfather III, it’s now a symbol of hope, having been restored in 1997 after a 23-year closure while evenings out were a no-go in the corruption-gripped city.
Our guide Valentina shows us street art portraying a politician as a mafia puppet and explains the shadowy organisation’s origins in 19th-century land grabs. We pause a while outside the reinforced law court where a series of columns with decreasingly damaged middles symbolises the receding cancer in society. Valentina points out the etched names of Falcone and Borsellino, the prosecutors who brought hundreds of mobsters to justice but paid with their lives in early ’90s car bombs. An alleged perpetrator was finally arrested this January.
Our tour supports Addio Pizzo – “Goodbye Peck”, peck being slang for extortion money. Begun in 2004 by five young entrepreneurs who refused to pay the Mob, the movement is now 1,000 businesses strong. Enforcer retaliation, such as glueing businesses’ locks, has been largely symbolic. With the big organised crime money now made through drugs, so is the pizzo itself. Valentina explains: “It’s a way to control people, to frighten them, a way to tell all the shop owners what to do, how to vote. It’s a way of being arrogant.”
Passing the ornate facades of Palermo’s old town, we end at an historic bakery whose owner bravely testified against a pizzo enforcer. In culinary solidarity we head for the train with a bag of its outstanding arancini.
With cross-country services limited, we retrace our coastal route to Catania, where the morning market has the largest fish I’ve ever seen. Oysters are piled high, octopus legs flop from crates and visitors dodge to one side as a great swordfish is wheeled through.
In the evening, the market courtyards are filled with restaurant tables where I agonise over whether I can manage both seafood-laden crostini and linguini. After all, I’ll be doing that Etna hike in the morning.
Book it: Citalia features a 12-night Rome-Sorrento-Sicily by train itinerary with four nights at Taormina (Etna tour can be added). From £1,959pp (twin share), including London flights. Citalia can also tailor-make Sicily-only tours on request. citalia.com
Jet2Holidays offers seven nights’ B&B in Hotel Alberi Del Paradiso in Cefalu from £1,329pp (twin share) departing Manchester 29 September. jet2holidays.com
Railbookers has a nine-day Sicily by train itinerary covering Taormina, Catania, Mt Etna and Palermo, from £1,599pp for Air and Rail; can also be booked as a rail round-trip. railbookers.com
Sicily snapshot
Smarter: Railway station ticket machines show options in English – trenitalia.com has timetables. Railbookers, Sunvil and Byway can package rail trips, and Great Rail Journeys has escorted tours. It’s possible to travel by train from the UK via mainland Italy – carriages are ferried across the straits of Messina.
Better: San Domenico Palace, Taormina, a Four Seasons hotel, was the setting for The White Lotus season two. The beach scenes with cathedral backdrop were filmed at Cefalu. fourseasons.com/taormina
Fairer: The Palermo No Mafia walking tour (£29.15) is commissionable via viator.com. Find out more at addiopizzo.org
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