We spent 10 days in Sicily. I’m still trying to process the experience! Sicily is loud, chaotic, grungy. But there is beauty and heart and soul. It’s definitely authentic. In your face. Unapologetic. I have family still there, and they are the kindest, most generous people you could meet. Sicily is an island and culture of contrasts. And fabulous food. Of course!

We began our Sicilian adventure in Catania, flying in from Sevilla in Spain. After a fair bit of drama with the hire car, with Gregor behind the wheel and me as Chief Navigator (we play to,our strengths 😬) and Grandma and Rigan in the back under strict instructions to STFU (🤣), we set off for our accommodation in the central part of town.

So, driving in Catania is like…well imagine this, there are no streetlights because of a city wide blackout, there are narrow streets with cars parked two and three deep so getting through required everyone to breathe in, every other car is in a hurry to get past you, even if it means driving on the footpath, and the scooters whizz by and yell abuse just because they can. Traffic signs are a guide only. It’s pretty much a free for all. Add to that they drive on the opposite side to us Aussie’s and…we had one very traumatised Gregor!

But Catania was great, as a city. I enjoyed it. It was brash and colourful. We discovered a flea market. There you could buy someone’s family photo album…it had war photos and family wedding photos dating back to the 1940s. I couldn’t help wondering what happened to the people who owned it. Are they somewhere thinking ‘dammit, what did I do with that photo album…?’ It was a little bizarre!

We also found the fish market. It was 30+ degrees, fish is out in the sun…we passed on the sampling!

We did a fabulous food tour and got to sample the local arancini. The consensus was-mine are tastier. We agreed that the rice to filling ratio was way too high and the saffron flavour was, meh. But the eggplant filling is one to add to my repertoire!

The Cathedral was impressive, but by this point in the trip we’re almost cathedraled out…

We returned to Catania at the end of our trip (Gregor was so relieved to hand back the car). Stay tuned for adventures in between!