The Day Before Departure

Sicily Map (showing major train lines)

I just wanted to write a couple of words about this trip before we leave. I'm not sure how long the trip to Sicily has been in the planning stage but probably something like 8 or 9 months. We bought the tickets on Easter Sunday (April 1) on a great one-day offer from AirItaly which pinned down the dates and length of the trip (16 days).

For the most part the tour is going to be driving and from the map you can see that Sicily is a relatively small island in the shape of a triangle, that is maybe 200 miles from corner to corner, so not all that big. Originally I had planned to drive counter-clockwise but some of the events and availability of certain places to stay dictated driving clockwise. Not a big deal compared to the medical problems that almost derailed the trip, but we are beyond that now.

So why Sicily? The main reason is we haven't been there and Sicily is supposed to be quite a bit different from the rest of Italy. I have a lot of friends who have been and talk about their visit fondly. Sicily also has a long history of being settled by foreign invaders - Greeks, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans, Spanish and French just to name a few – so it has a variety of different kinds of sights. And of course food is always high on our list. We expect to have a lot of great seafood, pasta and fantastic Sicilian deserts (like cannoli, cassata, etc.).