White Almond Sicily

Last month whilst flying into Catania airport on a clear and sunny January day I could see all the beautiful orange groves that cover the plains of Catania and foothills of Mount Etna. This time of year is a wonderful time to visit Sicily as all the groves are heaving with orange trees bearing their abundance of juicy colourful fruits.  There are around 67,000 hectares of orange groves in Sicily of which 70 per cent grow blood oranges during the growing season, which is January to May. The groves in Sicily have a unique microclimate provided by Mount Etna. Warm days, cool nights and fertile volcanic soil allow Sicilians to produce what many say are the best oranges in the world. As in the words of Oscar Wilde on his stay in Sicily “The Lemon groves and the Orange gardens were entirely perfect”. Oranges have been cultivated in Sicily since ancient times, and cultivation has been documented since the time of Moorish rule. Whilst the Arabs are credited with original...

L'amuri e come a tussi ... nun si po ammucciari (Love is like a cough ... impossible to hide) an old Sicilian proverb Sicily is an island full of myths, legends and romance. There are many love stories associated with the island both fact and fiction. From stories of nymphs and river gods from Greek mythology, love struck Hollywood movie stars, books written by some of the worlds most famous literary authors of all time, films about Sicily and filmed in Sicily and dramatic operas that depict lives of lost loves and loveless marriages. Some with happy endings and some with not so happy endings. Sicily is a place where once you visit you are immediately seduced by its beauty, food, culture and its people. I myself first visited Sicily after reading an article in a magazine. The article was called "Alternative Valentines Weekends Away". After a lot of research I booked a flight to Catania and a villa in Taormina and immediately fell in love as soon as my fe...