Sicily!

I think one of my favorite things about spring has to be the smells. The world has woken up after winter and people are finally making their way out of their houses, leaving windows open for pleasant breezes to swing through, carrying out different smells of food and soap and flowers and laundry detergent to mingle in the air, which in Padova is now being graced by a warm summer wind that has been catching those who have decided that according to the calendar-jacket season isn’t over yet despite the now daily 24 degrees celsius off guard.

But my favorite smell of all hit me when I was biking home this evening. Pure sweetness. The kind of sweetness that you know originated from a beautiful blossom of some sort, but when you look around, you can’t see the tree or the flower or any original source! It is just the general air of sweetness that makes me smile and delight in the magic of spring.

..but spring in Padova is not what this is about! Though I’m pretty sure all things should be about blossoms….

It’s about Spring in SICILY. Which, lucky for us travelers (aka me and my italian parents and blood-related parents), started in February, which was right when we went.

Poor Sicilians…they have had their coldest winter yet, which meant the sun was still beating down a good 70 degrees. Just having came from the north, flying out of Bologna which was continually covered in a fresh blanket of snow for the better part of February and the temperature hovered around and below freezing, we were taking off our coats and walking around with short sleeves, soaking up the 20-22 Celsius degree weather that we hadn’t felt in so long while the natives were walking around us bundled from head to toe and talking to each other with their scarves covering their mouthes to protect them from their relatively icy wind.

Can I talk about breakfast for a second? It was the best combination of sugar possible. The first cannoli I ever had was one my sister had brought me back from when she went to Sicily in September. It was just made that morning and I thought it was quite possibly the best thing ever. Then we had cannolis for breakfast in Sicily…ones that have the shells made fresh every morning and are filled right when you order them.

But there is something to be said about location when it comes to food. I think a lot of people will agree that when some place is really famous for a particular edible something, if you eat the exact same thing elsewhere, or try to duplicate it exactly, or even take it with you to another place…it just doesn’t taste the same as it does in its spot of origin. Cannolis are like that. It’s like trying to copy a recipe from your grandmother. You can do everything the exact same but it won’t taste as good as hers! That’s how I feel about Sicilian oranges. Was that a clear connection there?

I am absolutely bonkers for oranges. And when I found out we were going to Sicily, where all the oranges I had been buying in Padova were being shipped in from anyways…I started drooling, sort of. So while driving to here, Isola delle Correnti,

(ps this is the meeting point of the Mediterranean and the Ionian sea, so there are two opposing currents and two different colors! It kind of feels like being on the edge of the world)

we were going through a little town on our way and when we turned through an intersection that didn’t have any lights or signals of any sort, not counting just about fifteen old Sicilian men manning the different corners, sitting outside of bars or just watching the cars go by, which was…us in our huge van…we saw an open truck sitting of to the side of the intersection with pure gold, i.e. oranges. They pulled over immediately and my host mom pushed me out the door and told me to go get oranges because I had been talking about them for a while. Up until this point I had been beyond intimidated to talk to anyone because I was afraid of not understanding the response. But, for oranges…I couldn’t resist. So I wandered over to the un-manned cart, waited a little while the line of communication passed through shouts and calls by various people to relate that there was a lady waiting to buy fruit , starting from outside and working its way indoors to a dark bar going through about 3/4 of the men present, a man finally came out and asked me what I wanted. I said…maybe 7 or 8 oranges. He asked if I wanted a bag of 5 euros worth. Quick calculations in my head…at Padova the oranges were going for about 1.20 euros per kilo and oranges weigh a fair amount, so that sounded good to me! He then proceeded to fill a plastic bag with maybe 30 oranges. I had no idea what to do, so I just started laughing. I was so shocked! I could not imagine that many oranges and it just seemed like the plastic bag did not have a full point nor did the man have intentions of stopping. So there I was laughing by myself and clutching a 10 euro bill and beyond excited to eat the best oranges in the world, I am convinced. I paid and walked back to the car, both my arms at their capacity to bring all of these oranges back to a very eager crowd. I know I ate about 7 oranges each day I was there.

I don’t know if maybe it was just because I didn’t really think about Sicily much before…but I did not imagine that it was so incredibly beautiful. We were also very lucky to be there when we were because also my italian parents who have been there a fair amount of times had never seen this Sicily…full of green life, the almond trees blossoming and perfuming the salty air, yellow flowers flanking the freeway, orange groves for miles and miles and the sea that was an incredible mix of teals and dark blue. Sicily is gorgeous.

We went to Agrigento! Which I had never heard of before, but should be talked about more because it has the largest collection of Greek temples outside of Athens! Did you know that?

Though the temples were incredible and practically unfathomable to think about how old they are and yet so amazingly intact, I don’t know if I was more taken with them or with the surrounding scenery.

The temples are strung across the top of a hill which marks the edge of an incredible valley of green and characteristic houses that stretch to the sea. Standing next to the ruins of a temple that date back hundreds of years B.C. looking out at old country houses that are accompanied by vineyards that stretch their way out to the Mediterranean…I thought, oh yes. This is why I’m here.