Month: February 2026

There are lots of tourists here in Sicily. It’s the old dilemma: being one myself and, at the same time, not liking my own kind…

Consequently many places here seems to be nothing more than a setup, made of Gucci shops mixed with cheap Chinese souvenirs. So I keep asking myself: where is the real life of the real people of the real Sicily?

Yesterday in Taormina, that was exactly my impression. The town itself is stunning. It sits on the eastern shore of the island, where mountains rise straight up from the beach, disappearing into the clouds. Taormina up there is famous, and the list of well-known people who have lived or at least passed through is impressive: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Oscar Wilde, D. H. Lawrence, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, Greta Garbo, Elizabeth Taylor, Francis Ford Coppola. And yet, despite all this, the place feels like a tourist trap, filled with Chinese plastic goods.

Much better is Catania. The city has around 300,000 residents, amazing eateries, beautiful architecture, and a lot of history. But what is most rewarding is this: Real people live here. Kids go to school in the morning, people discuss things out on the street, elderly men feed the pigeons, and it feels like there is a market on every corner. There are hardly any tourists, Italian is the main language, and locals are friendly and welcoming. No rip-offs.

Most places are walkable, and prices are reasonable. Just 14 euros for what might be the best pizza in the world: “Piazza Duca di Genova” — mozzarella, Genoese pesto, Parmesan shavings, extra virgin olive oil. Simple, but heaven in my mouth. I’ll take care of the calories later…. You’ll find it at Al Vicolo Pizza & Vino – here.

If Sicily — Catania is the perfect starting point. See pictures below.

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It takes a minute to understand the booking system of Trenitalia, one of the two main railway companies here. Getting to a local place requires a regional train, and it is easiest to buy tickets online via the app and pay by card—very convenient, and everything is in English.

Then it gets interesting. The ticket is valid for one day and, as it seems, only for the specific train it was bought for. But if one wants to take an earlier train, it is equally easy to change the booking, as long as it is on the same day. So instead of going back to Catania at 6:32 pm, it turned out to be no problem to take the train an hour earlier. As convenient as the booking system are the trains themselves: clean, comfy, brand new. And, unlike the infamous German Deutsche Bahn (railway) — on time! So – who needs a car anyway?

Getting to Syracuse took a bit more than an hour. The city is very walkable and wedged between two harbors on an island that one reaches only by crossing a bridge hundreds of years old. This natural fortress, which had its own freshwater well, used to have approximately 200,000 residents in the centuries before Christ’s birth. It was founded as a Greek settlement, as were many places populated by Greeks spreading their culture (“Hellenism”) all across the Mediterranean Sea. That is why, e. g., there are so many Greek archaeological sites in what is now Turkey, Troy being only the most famous of many others.

Some of the residents of Syracuse bore names that are very famous today, such as Plato and Archimedes. And this is also the place where ancient Athens lost the Peloponnesian War against Sparta, when an expedition of 40,000 men sailed across the Mediterranean Sea, trying to seize Sparta’s ally Syracuse. They suffered a serious defeat in the harbor of the city.

Later, the Romans took over Sicily, with Syracuse remaining a very influential city. Only when the Arabs conquered Sicily did they make Palermo the new main hub of the island. Syracuse fell into ruins, and it was only in the late 1980s that the local government stopped the departure of the few remaining inhabitants of the old town by reconstructing the old buildings.

Today, Syracuse is a touristic hotspot (locals are clearly preparing for the upcoming season by hammering and fixing their vending places) and bears the omnipresent charm of Italy: accepting the scars of the past and turning them into a dreamlike image of time.

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