Every year for the past decade or so (with the exception of the COVID years of course), Becky and I have travelled to Italy for the delightful International Journalism Festival, which is held in the ancient city of Perugia, about two hours north of Rome in the hills of Umbria. It is a fantastic conference that takes place over five days and involves more than 350 speakers, hundreds of volunteers, and about a dozen amazing venues in the Centro Storico. Even more amazing, attendance is free and open to anyone. The photo below is just one of the beautiful venues, the Sala dei Notari or Gallery of Notables, which was built sometime in the 13th century — about two hundred years before Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press.
Another one of the festival’s venues, which was new last year, is the incredible Church of San Francesco, which was partially destroyed in World War II and has been restored to become a modern entertainment venue — with plexiglas filling in the hole at the top of the nave, and a modern sound system. It was quite spectacular to be on stage there.
Every year we have been to Italy, we have taken advantage of the trip by booking a few days to go somewhere else for a short vacation. Last year it was Puglia, in the south, and we also made a side visit to Matera, the ancient city of caves, one of the oldest continuously-inhabited towns in the world. The year before that it was Florence and Pisa, and we’ve also seen most of Rome (of course) as well as Venice, Sorrento and the Amalfi Coast, and Cinque Terre. This year we met up with our Italian friend Anna Masera, who used to teach journalism at the university in Turin, and spent some time touring Sicily, including a somewhat terrifying trip up a very windy Mount Etna.
We flew from Perugia to Catania, which is on the eastern coast of Sicily, on Ryanair, for a base fare of about 19 Euros, or 25 Canadian dollars (although it cost more to add checked bags, etc.) This kind of thing is why I am so jealous of friends who live in Europe — everything is so close together, you can take a train or a cheap flight to just about anywhere. In Canada, we have to pay almost a thousand dollars just to fly across our own country 🙂 I love the vastness of Canada, and especially the natural beauty, but when it comes to travelling to new and exciting places, it can be a real pain in the behind.
Once in Catania, we rented a tiny, somewhat beat-up Hyundai — and got the extra insurance coverage, which turned out to be a blessing once we actually tried to park in downtown Catania (or anywhere else, for that matter.) We stayed at an Airbnb with a balcony overlooking the historic Piazza Bellini — in the photo below, our apartment is one of the ones to the right of the theatre, which was dedicated to the famous composer from Catania.
For our first day, we drove to Noto, in the southeastern part of Sicily (if you watched the TV show White Lotus, one of the villains had a villa in Noto). It had a fantastic ancient center, with some great examples of Baroque architecture, including a couple of great old churches. Catania is also known for its Baroque architecture, in part because that’s as old as its buildings get — the city was destroyed by an eruption of Mount Etna in the 1600s, and had to be completely rebuilt. We took a tour of one old church in Noto, and were able to climb the ancient stone steps right to the top, where we got a great view of the old city.
From there, we went to Siracusa — but first, we went to the beach in Noto. Unfortunately, it was too early for any of the tourist restaurants to be open on the beach, so Anna asked someone where we could find something to eat. He said “Follow me,” and led us on a windy tour of the nearby town of Avola, where he finally deposited us at a tiny bakery that he said was well known for its aroncini (balls of rice baked with meat sauce and other ingredients). So we bought as much aroncini as we could carry, and headed off to Siracusa. An ancient port city, the oldest part of Siracusa is the island of Ortygia, so we drove there and walked around the tiny alleyways eating gelato until we came to a beach on the eastern side of the island, and there Anna and I went for a (somewhat chilly) swim.
After a great dinner in Catania, the next day we set out bright and early to drive to Mount Etna, which is an hour or so north of the city. Anna had booked a guided tour of the volcano, and although she warned us that we would need solid boots, walking sticks, and warm clothing to survive, I underestimated just how hard it would be. After all, when we were in Sorrento we climbed up Mount Vesuvius and I wore a T-shirt and sandals (and enjoyed an espresso from the coffee bar at the top near the crater). But Etna was very different — much higher, for one thing, at about 3,300 metres. It is also one of the world’s most active volcanoes, which meant that we couldn’t get anywhere near the top, since it has a habit of erupting without much notice. So we would be going from 2,500 metres to about 2,750.
We drove to about 2,300 metres and met our guide, and got outfitted with rental boots (for the lava and snow) and walking sticks, and helmets. We were supposed to take the funicula or cablecar to 2,500 metres, but it was too windy for the cablecar, so we were taken up in buses with giant moon tires. And then we set off up a hellish landscape of lava, snow, and scree — buffeted by a wind that at times almost blew us off our feet. I don’t know how fast the wind was blowing, but it had to be about 50 km/h or more. It was all we could do to follow our guide slowly up the volcano’s southern face, periodically finding shelter behind a crater wall. It was a fantastic adventure, but at times I wondered whether we would survive it! At the end, our guide confessed he had actually taken us higher than we were supposed to go, up to about 2,800 metres or so.
Having survived Etna, the following day we drove north to Taormina, another site some might be familiar with from the show The White Lotus. We even walked by the hotel that is featured in the show — the San Domenico Palace, a Four Seasons hotel overlooking the bay — but unfortunately they wouldn’t let us in to look around. Taormina has a number of exclusive hotels, some of which are even nicer than the San Domenico Palace, and it also has a fantastic ancient Greek amphitheatre, which is used for concerts and other local events.
Unfortunately, the following day was our last in Sicily. But hopefully some day we will make our way back there to see the rest of the island!
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