White Almond Sicily

This year we are celebrating ten years of our Sicilian house. Sicily is an island full of outstanding beauty, delicious food, wonderful history and culture and the Sicilian people, who are amazing, who have their own way of life making island life completely unique which is another reason why we fell in love with the island so much so that we decided to buy a house there. Coming from London we are used to a fast pace of life. Over the past ten years we have learned to live like the Sicilians do. People now say "she is now more Siciliana than Inglese ", I have been told I dress differently and I even gesture like a Sicilian when I talk and eat. In Sicily I never watch television, well why would I need to when I have Mount Etna as live entertainment? It is often that I get Emails and messages from people looking to relocate to Sicily asking for my advice. My advice is to rent first because living in Sicily is completely different to going on holiday in Sicily. With th...

Beach Life in Giardini Naxos This year we are celebrating ten wonderful years since we bought our Sicilian home. We first visited Sicily in 2005 after I saw an article in a UK fashion magazine about alternative Valentines Day weekends away which featured Taormina. With my love of all things Italian and my husbands love of gangster movies it seemed like the perfect place for us to visit. After a lot of research I booked our flights to Catania and the charming Hotel Villa Sirina which is nestled between Taormina and Giardini Naxos. As soon as we first glimpsed the peak of a smoking Mount Etna through the airplane window and our feet touched the tarmac at the airport we had already fallen in love with the island. Our host and hotel manager Salvatore had arranged for a car to pick us up and on arrival at Villa Sirina he immediately made us feel welcome. Once we had settled in he telephoned his friend to come and drive us up the mountain in his vintage Fiat 105 to see Taormin...

Located in the middle of the Mediterranean, Sicily has a mixture of ancient history which creates a unique and timeless atmosphere. Sicily formed a significant portion of Ancient Greece and was strategically vital to the Roman Empire, thereafter the island was invaded in succession by countless vestiges of invading powers. Each conquest left its mark creating an island full of rich history, culture, architecture and wonderful cuisine making it unlike any other place in the world. Foreign influences on the island have affected everything, from the food, place names, urban town plans, fishing techniques, crops and produce, architecture and even the water works. The Sicilian dialect is a language of its own created from these foreign invasions, it is a romance language with influences from each invading power. So who exactly were these invading powers and where can you visit whilst staying in Eastern Sicily. The Greeks The first Greek colony was founded at Giardini Naxos...