Sicilian notes

A tiny note about our trip in Sicily Published on thought

A list of things noticed during our 2-week trip in Sicily:

  • People saying "bombastic"
  • Traffic rules seem to simply be suggestions (especially speed limits)
  • Savory or sweet, everything is fried
  • Arancina or arancino, that is the question[1]
  • Pani câ meusa (or spleen sandwich) is surprisingly good
  • Breakfast (when there is one) should be sweet
  • Bread is yellow, not sure why
  • Cassata might be one of the rare "layered cake" I like
  • Recycling is going strong (or theoretically at least with all these different bins)
  • So many stray cats
  • A few stray dogs
  • A carb with carb with carb sandwich[2]
  • Clear turquoise water that are postcard-worthy
  • The landscape looks similar to some parts of the Ardèche region in France (but as a drier version most of the time)
  • Some people wearing winter jackets even though it's more than 25 °C
  • A mix of overpopulated cities and lands only inhabited by cows and sheeps
  • Olive trees
  • Orange trees
  • Lemon trees
  • Fresh lemons that you can practically eat like apples
  • Empty streets from 1–3pm, except for the occasional tourist
  • A very strong pride in being Sicilian
  • No one cares about the Italian national day
  • Churches
  • 24 hours vending machine clusters everywhere
  • Lots of precise hand gestures
  • Much more tourism than what I would have expected
  • Very cool pebble beaches (sand is overrated)
  • Toilets that flush with a manual tap system
  • Terrible napkins that feel like paper
  • Natural reserves where you can swim just like at a regular beach[3]
  • A very poor public transportation system — the car is king
  • An obsession with the Moor's heads[4] as: ceramic vases, book holders, tablecloth decoration, bed sheet pattern, pillow cases, magnets, mugs, ...
  • Many archeological monuments (a.k.a. lots of protected old rocks that are expensive to see)
  • Ficuses, my new favorite type of tree![5]

  1. There is apparently a strong debate between West (arancina team) and East (arancino team) Sicily on how to call these delicious rice balls. ↩︎

  2. Thinking of the panelle e crocchè sandwich that is made with bread, chickpea fritters and fried potato balls ↩︎

  3. This feels weird to me, aren't natural reserves usually supposed to be protected from any kind of human impact? ↩︎

  4. The Moor's heads are symbolic of Sicily. The story is about an impossible love between a Moor young woman and a man. Spoiler: She cuts his head and makes a vase with it when she learns that he is married with kids. #romantic #truelove ↩︎

  5. The coolest ficus tree is in the Palermo botanical garden. ↩︎

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