Rolling hills covered with wheat fields and dotted with wind turbines stretched into the distance as far as the eye could see. Occasionally, a stone village appeared among them, terraced along the hillside or sitting atop a ridge overlooking the ochre-and-gold landscape.

The scenery could have been out of Val d'Orcia – the Tuscan region of The Gladiator and The English Patient fame. Except it wasn't. I was in Sicily, in the far-less explored area of the Madonie, a mountain range on the northern side of the Italian island.