Although I was obsessed by all things Italian when I was a teenager and was lucky enough to visit several places in Italy, I never made it to Sicily. Then again, neither did I achieve my other youthful aspiration, which was to become an actress and land a recurring role on the 1980s sitcom “The Facts of Life.” Que sera, sera. Or “quel che sara, sara” as a Sicilian would say.

I watched “Cinema Paradiso,” a 1988 Italian movie set in Sicily, about a million times. I cried openly about what seemed (to my unformed cerebral lobes) the most romantic story ever. I especially loved the shots of the rocky Sicilian coastline with its impossibly azure ocean.