Sicily, the island of “The Godfather”, the origin of Italian “Cannoli” and the warm paradise we fantasized about during our cold Scandinavian winter (post link). This island has been the gateway from Africa into Europe (and vice versa) for thousands of years, enduring every conquering civilization and embracing cultural and culinary gems from each passing nation.

As a rule of thumb, any place that had ethnic diversity is a good place for food, we just didn’t know yet how amazing Sicilian food really is.

Our Sicilian adventure started in “Villa san Giovanni”, where you need to embark on a ferry in order to get to the island of Sicily.
We had a little rocky start when we discovered that a car & a caravan pay the price of 2 cars (and not like the internet English website says). After a while of arguing with the guy at the counter (and every wiling Italian that happened to stop by and convey his opinion on the matter) we paid for 2 cars one way 82 €, and set sail to Sicily. On our return journey it was cheaper and we paid 66€. Later I realized that these were different companies – the return was with BLUFERRIES, so if you can take them both ways, you will save a little bit on your journey.

We were planning on spending our first night at a farm from our “Fattore Amico” book in Milazzo, but since we arrived pretty late we ended up spending the night at a small neighborhood parking lot.
Now, here is another example of how amazing Italians are. We parked out of the way and blocked no one, but as luck had it on that particular  morning they were doing construction on that parking lot and we were in the way. Around 10:00 AM someone knocked on our door, apologized, and asked if we could move so that they could work. We got ready and when I exited the caravan I realized that they completely blocked the lot with barricades and they had been waiting for a long time for us to leave – even before they knocked.

From there we drove all the way to Trapani, a medium sized port city on the far north-west side of the island.
In our “Fattore Amico” book, we found an amazing family that received us with open arms onto their olive oil farm – “Baglio D’Ali”. A peaceful gated olive grove and the amazing hospitality of Giuseppe made for a great Sicilian start.

In their beautiful “Baglio” – a courtyard shaped house (similar to the Arabic “Chan”) we learned that they have a sector of their house that has remained from the Arab rule in Sicily that is over 300 years old!

Giuseppe made a big effort in order to get us great tips and local info on parking options, restaurants, fish markets and anything else we fancied. One day, he even gave us a tour of the small medieval town of Erice. A fortress town about 700m above sea level that provides a cool breeze on a hot Sicilian day and a spectacular 360 degree panoramic view of the coast line.

Giuseppe was one of our most gracious hosts, and we were lucky to meet him.
From his conveniently located farm we started exploring the north western coast line looking for those great beaches we had been reading about. To read more about the best beaches in Sicily go to our blog post – (post link).

On our third day at the farm we drove to “San Vito Lo Capo” a small beach town. On our way, we saw a big dirt parking lot right in front of the beach with a row of campers! This looked too good to be true, so we pulled up with our car and I asked one Italian family in a camper if it’s possible to spend the night there, they laughed and said in Italian – “Free, safe, sleep, for as long as you want!”
On the next day we said goodbye to our host Giuseppe and headed to paradise!
To read all about our 2 weeks in paradise – go to our blog post – (post link).

Check out some of the local treasures and vintage jewelry we found in this region on our online store at: Gourmet Vintage