Driving east across the lower belly of Sicily, you know you will soon come upon Mount Etna. Still, there’s knowing and there’s knowing. Breaking out of the rocky landscape, snow-dusted volcanic mouth agape, it is incongruous with the sunny backdrop. Like the rest of Sicily, Etna surprises.
My husband, two-year old son and I were on a two-week pilgrimage to meet the motherland, that is: to trace my mother’s Sicilian roots, eat lots of arancini, and drink wine (my son only drank with dinner). Starting in the bustling capital of Palermo, we had driven through the dusty towns my great grandparents left over 100 years ago, through the ancient ruins in Agrigento, and now over to the eastern coast under the shadow of Mount Etna: the largest active volcano in all of Europe. She dominates the landscape, soil, and all of life in Eastern Sicily.
Driving through the countryside in Sicily, one imagines you could have quite a lovely time indeed staying most anywhere, even at a small, inexpensive B&B, eating cheap and lovely lunches of fresh market produce and mortadella from the local guy. One could make a wonderful time out of very little here.
That was not, however, the way we were doing it. Our rental car was making its way toward a private villa (with pool!) at the spectacular Monaci delle Terre Nere (“monks of the black land” in Italian. Monks were the custodians of this rich volcanic terroir for centuries, cultivating olives, vineyards, fruit and other bounties).
Monaci is the kind of place where they’ve thought of everything. A place where, for the right price, any comfort can be yours. I say this in the most complimentary way: from the moment you pull up, you feel completely under their care. We arrived at the villa in a golf cart, where our luggage and car had magically appeared while we were enjoying our welcome drinks.
When we saw the villa, my normally calm and reserved husband became positively giddy. No sooner had Monaci staff pulled away in the golf cart than he had thrown on his bathing suit and changed my son into his, both racing out to the pool. My husband clicked on an Italian Spotify playlist, and all three of us danced like idiots around the villa’s garden as the sun sank lower in the sky. A key discovery of this playlist was Toto Cutugno’s “L’Italiano”, which became something of a soundtrack to the rest of the trip:
Lasciatemi cantare
(Let me sing)
Con la chitarra in mano
(With this guitar in hand)
Lasciatemi cantare
(Let me sing)
Una canzone piano piano
(Let me sing a song slowly)
Lasciatemi cantare
(Let me sing)
Perché ne sono fiero
(Because I’m proud of it)
Sono un italiano
(I am the Italian)
Un italiano vero
(A true Italian)
When I am dying and my life is flashing before my eyes, I like to think I will see the three of us dancing around together, carefree and happy, to the tune of Italian classics in the garden of our Sicilian villa.
Monaci, while many other wonderful things, is also an agriturismo. This means that the products served to guests are all local, most grown right on the property. At breakfast, overlooking the sea, we ate piles of fresh ricotta, sun-dried tomatoes, warm focaccia, and honey.
Nearby Zafferana Etnea is known as the “city of honey”, producing much of the honey in the region. One evening we drove the short distance from Monaci for dinner in Zafferana. The town square sits on a steep hill with stunning views of the sea. We settled in for dinner on the terrace of a local place. Antipasti began appearing, along with the specialty of the house—a sort of fried Sicilian pizza, calzoney thing. Kids were running around on the square, riding scooters and chasing one another. My son could not resist this, forewent dinner, and fell in with a pack of older soccer-playing kids. He wasn’t much support defensively or offensively, being two and without any grasp of the rules. But he ran around that square for over an hour while my husband and I, like the other parents on the square, ate dinner, drank, and looked on. We capped the night off with pistachio gelato on the square before driving home.
In a sliding doors moment, one sees how they could be living an as or more lovely life, evening after evening on the town square in Zafferana, watching your son speed around with his friends, eating pistachio gelato.
During our last full day on the island, we drove the 30ish minutes from Monaci to spend a day on the beach in Taormina, a jewel on Sicily’s eastern coast. If we were only going to spend one day there, I figured we should do it right, and reserved us a pair of lounge chairs at the Beach Club at the swank Villa Sant’Andrea Hotel. Having seen White Lotus, I tempered my expectations, wondering if lounging at Villa Sant’Andrea would be a crowded sea of faceless wealth, devoid of any Italian charm.
By the time I was handed striped beach towels and graciously led to my lounge chairs, I forgot what a “tempered expectation” even meant, along with most of my other vocabulary. My husband and I set up shop in our front row seats and each ordered a drink. We took turns swimming out to the rock and jumping off, each waving furiously to the other before our big leap. Someone handed my son a mini chocolate ice cream cone which he gobbled up enthusiastically, chocolate melting over his face and belly as he giggled in my husband’s lap. This, I thought, is the stuff of pure happiness.
I came to Sicily to better understand my heritage: to eat, to drink, to see its cities and its countryside. I came to Sicily because its something my mom and I always talked about doing, and she passed before we could come here together. On the small pebble beach, I wondered what she’d be thinking. How thrilled she’d be that I was here—that I had brought her only grandson back to where her family originated. I thought about how desperately I missed her.
Before we broke for lunch I swam out into the cool water alone, turning back to shore periodically to catch a glimpse of my husband and son. Maybe it was the refreshing water, or the bougainvillea-ed tableau of Italian coastline. Maybe it was gratitude for the incredible luck I’ve had to be experiencing a moment like this. Maybe it was the sadness of knowing this moment would soon end. Maybe it was the wine. But treading water in the Ionian sea alone, I began to cry. Then, weep.
I believe the Italians have a word for this: agrodolce (a combination of the Italian words “bitter” and “sweet”). It’s the same word used to describe their delicious caponata: an eggplant-y, olive oil-y thing ubiquitous across Sicily that contains both vinegar and sugar—acid and sweet. Life is, of course, always both. Sometimes in the same day, or the same instant. I can’t believe I am here in the Mediterranean sun with my boys. What if I am never here again?
But since I was still around, it seemed prudent to have a good lunch. We lumbered up from the beach to Villa Sant’Andrea’s serene, casual-but-exquisitely-executed beachside restaurant. Waiters discreetly procured crayons for my son—lest this interlude be any less than maximally pleasant—and drinks for my husband and me. I ordered a pizza with mortadella, fresh cheese, basil, and pistachio pesto, which was almost as luxurious as my swim in the sea.
Getting back in the car later, the sun cast golden, late-afternoon light across the hills. I couldn’t even be sad the trip would soon end— I was too happy. My son dozed off in the back as my husband and I drove the high-up streets of Taormina, pointing around like excited kids.
It’s true we would leave Sicily the next day, and who knows when we would be back again. But we’d seen enough Sicily to know it had imprinted on us. The taste of fresh ricotta and sundried tomatoes, the cool embrace of the sea, the sounds of my son giggling, running around with Italian kids in Zafferana. I’m so glad my family left this place so that I had a reason to return.
Les Bonnes Adresses
Monaci delle Terre Nere, Relais & Chateaux
Via Monaci, Via Pietralunga, sn, 95019 Zafferana Etnea CT, Italy
Phone: +39 095 708 3638
Lido Villeggiatura Beach Club
Villa Sant'Andrea, A Belmond Hotel
Via Nazionale, 137, 98039 Taormina ME, Italy
Phone: +39 0942 627 1200