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If it weren’t called Corleone, this small, quaint town would appear to visitors as one of many others of the Sicilian hinterland: groups of elderly people strolling in a semi-deserted square, rows of low sand-coloured houses and a 16th-century church on the highest hill. It would be difficult to imagine that for almost half a century it was the str...

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Before anything else, Sicily is an island and, like all islands, mysteries hide beneath its surface, half land and half water. It seems that the gods–and their adventures, desires, and whims–never left the sunny theaters of Syracuse or Taormina. Along the coast of Palermo and Trapani, the heroic cries of Odysseus and half-divine Heracles still echo...

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BlueMed makes landfall in Sicily. Sparkle (Tim Group’s global operator) is laying a high-speed internet submarine cable across the Mediterranean Sea. On Tuesday, it successfully connected it to the “Sicily Hub” neutral data centre in Palermo, which is connected to eighteen other international cables. BlueMed now stretches from Genoa to Golfo Aranci...

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Just open a map, Sicily is the heart of the Mediterranean–geographically and, for centuries, politically too. The sea that now divides Europe from Africa and the Middle East, a frontier between states, a natural as well as a cultural boundary to be defended, has been a point of conjunction since a good 6,000 years before Christ. Cradle of the civil...

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May 23, 2023 marks 31 years since tensions between Sicily’s Cosa Nostra mafia and the Italian government reached an explosive turning point. The date will now also mark the opening of a new anti-mafia museum in Palermo, Italy, dedicated to Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, two anti-crime leaders who were murdered within 57 days of each other b...

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With the latest additions to the Sicilian Pdo and Pgi basket (Pistachio di Raffadali Pdo and Pesca di Delia Pgi) in 2021, Sicily reaches 36 food products (out of a total of 67 Pdo and Pgi products), ranking second in Italy for agri-food products with designation of origin and geographical indication recognized by the European Union. According to th...

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I have an admitted bias towards my hometown of Messina, and though I have since left it, I still feel like its champion out in the world. Often overlooked for other, grander Sicilian cities like Palermo or Syracusa, Messina barely registers on travelers’ radars. Any friend who has been to Messina in the past typically tells me that they were only p...

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According to the latest Ismea report, 2022-2023 global orange production is estimated at 47.5 million tons, down 5% year over year. A decrease that, in Italy, stands at -25%. In this scenario, Sicily is the first Italian region in terms of area invested in oranges, with about two- thirds of the national total: compared to 2021, there is a decline o...

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I was expecting an easy and relaxing Mediterranean summer. The plan was to spend a few months au pairing somewhere that matched my criteria: sunny, relaxing, by the beach with great food, and the potential to learn a new language. Italy seemed like the perfect place. I managed to connect with a family in Catania, and was ready to trade in a muggy a...

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Ancient, luxurious, enjoyable and - of course - Sicilian. Agrigento, the Italian Capital of Culture 2025, is the city to visit now and in the near future. Famous everywhere for its Doric temples, a Unesco World Heritage Site, it knows how to amaze its visitors.  Millennia after its apex, a poignant, decadent, and majestic beauty still survives beyo...

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