Ready, Set...
Read, of course
Roger is a retired English professor and Eileen was a librarian. We always like to read about our destinations before we travel. The titles above are just of few of the books we read to prepare. The cookbook gave us ideas for food we wanted to try--arancini, yes! cannoli, yes! pasta with cacio y pepe, yes again! The Mackay and Norwich books gave us a sense of the rich history of the country--as a large island in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicily has been invaded and conquered seemingly by just about everyone, which makes for a rich cultural mix--, and the Camilleri short stories about Inspector Montalbano added local color. Eileen is a gardener and always consults 1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die before traveling. For this trip, that research meant we added the Palermo Botanical Garden and the Cefalu Cathedral with its "you must see" Byzantine Christ Pantocrator mosaic to our list of places to see that were not on the tour. Roger also read several short novels by Leonardo Sciascia, which have been described as "metaphysical" detective stories: the non-detective always finds out who committed the crime, but the perpetrator never seems to be punished.
Not a reader? Here are a few films set in Sicily:
The Sicilian Girl: based on a true story about a young woman who testified against the Sicilian mafia.
The Leopard: starring Burt Lancaster and based on a novel of the same title by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.
Inspector Montalbano: a television series, based on novels by Andrea Camilleri.
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy is available from CNN and one episode features Stanley enjoying Sicilian food and wine.
The books and films listed are older. We found some at our local library, some through Netflix, and the Stanley Tucci series through streaming services.
Travel Tip: Even if you're not a reader, you should definitely read Rick's guidebook before you go. You will have free time and it helps to get an idea beforehand how you might like to use it. Also, not everything you might want to see is on the tour, and if you know that ahead of time, you can make your travel plans accordingly. We arrived in Palermo early in order to see the cathedral in Cefalu, a town a one-hour train ride from Palermo that wasn't on the tour. Another couple were in search of family history and stayed after the tour ended to visit towns where they hoped to find family records.
Not a reader? Here are a few films set in Sicily:
The Sicilian Girl: based on a true story about a young woman who testified against the Sicilian mafia.
The Leopard: starring Burt Lancaster and based on a novel of the same title by Giuseppe di Lampedusa.
Inspector Montalbano: a television series, based on novels by Andrea Camilleri.
Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy is available from CNN and one episode features Stanley enjoying Sicilian food and wine.
The books and films listed are older. We found some at our local library, some through Netflix, and the Stanley Tucci series through streaming services.
Travel Tip: Even if you're not a reader, you should definitely read Rick's guidebook before you go. You will have free time and it helps to get an idea beforehand how you might like to use it. Also, not everything you might want to see is on the tour, and if you know that ahead of time, you can make your travel plans accordingly. We arrived in Palermo early in order to see the cathedral in Cefalu, a town a one-hour train ride from Palermo that wasn't on the tour. Another couple were in search of family history and stayed after the tour ended to visit towns where they hoped to find family records.
What about the language?
Eileen tried using the free version of Duolingo to learn some Italian (Sicilian was not available and we read that Sicilians also speak Italian). Although she has some French and Spanish dating back to high school and college and hoped it would help with Italian, Italian proved to be more of a challenge than anticipated. She did manage to learn some basic and very important words and phrases such as per favore, grazie, vino, and canolli. But Eileen's difficulties don't mean Duolingo or another language learning tool won't work for you.
We found many people also spoke English--or enough for us to communicate, and then thank them in Italian.
TO GO TO THE NEXT SECTION, CLICK ON "MENU" IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER. WORDS IN BOLD PURPLE ARE LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES.
We found many people also spoke English--or enough for us to communicate, and then thank them in Italian.
TO GO TO THE NEXT SECTION, CLICK ON "MENU" IN THE TOP LEFT CORNER. WORDS IN BOLD PURPLE ARE LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES.