The beach is not the first thing that most people think of when they think of Italy. Sure, everybody knows there are miles of coastline in the country, but when they think of Italy they think of art museums, churches, leaning towers, The Colosseum, the Trevi Fountain, or little hilltop towns covered in vines, gelato, pasta, and pizza. When I think of Italy, yes, I think of these things too (I’ve eaten dozens of gelati, been to the Uffizi multiple times, stood open-mouthed looking at ceilings in more than a few churches), but I also think of beaches, especially southern Italian beaches—the most rugged and plentiful in Italy.
To me, there is nothing more Italian than the perfect lazy beach day—morning spent shuttling between sunbathing, the shade of an umbrella, and sparkling sea waters; a lunch too heavy for the heat but deeply satisfying including as many of the three P’s as possible (pizza, pasta, pane); a lunch-induced comatose nap in a dimly lit room or on a shady terrace; a second groggy afternoon visit to the beach; more of the 3 P’s for dinner possibly followed by gelato; and then a long lulling walk along a promenade or sit on a balcony looking out into the warm black night air.
I first brought Mike in on this Italian-style beach vacation when we were still in college and Mike, Pat (Mike’s childhood buddy), and I spent a comatose week on a beach in Puglia (the heel of the boot). Of course, having experienced such a thing once (like a sun-hot tomato), you can never quite let go of its luscious taste in your mouth, and so Mike and I dreamed of another southern Italian beach vacation. Southern Italian specifically because of the culture—rugged, less developed, and around every corner lives the food of our fantasies. And when you look at a map of Italy, how can you resist that large, mysterious island sitting to the south? Sicily called us, we answered, and here are the results.
{Warning: this is a very long post, but you will be rewarded for sticking it out with many photos throughout and good food at the end.}
AT THE BEACH
As I mentioned, we were really looking for a lazy beach vacation, and that is what we got. We stayed in a small beach town called Fontane Bianche, and we went to the beach every day, many days twice (broken by the lovely lunch and nap I mentioned above).
This was Ella’s first time at a hot weather beach, and she loved it! She spent much of her time playing in the sand, but also loved learning to walk in the shallow water and swooshing around with us out deeper.
The house we rented was just a 5-10 minute walk to a nice sandy beach with beautiful clear water.
On some parts of the beach there was this black plant debris right along the edge of the water (see below), but otherwise the water was gorgeous.
Not too far away from where we were staying, Mike spotted this more rocky coastline, which we guess is probably what large swathes of the coast are like aside from developed beaches.
OUR LITTLE SANCTUARY
Other than swimming in the ocean, the best part of our trip was relaxing at the little house we rented. This house had a beautiful shaded porch filled with comfortable furniture and a dining table. We spent pretty much every moment on this porch other than sleeping and cooking. It was so peaceful with a little grove of fruit trees to look at in the front yard and cool breezes coming through.
Ella especially loved playing on this porch, and it conveniently had gates and railings so we could let her go wild.
Here’s Ella set up in her “sack ‘n seat” eating:
DAY TRIPS
Although it was hard to pull ourselves away from our lazy beach routine, we did manage to get out and see the surroundings a bit.
: SIRACUSA
First stop was historic Siracusa, just 30 minutes from our little beach town. We spent a morning wandering the historic Ortygia island area.
Lots of little meandering streets, and of course we found a food market:
We also went walking around the 13th century Castello Maniace. Beautiful white buildings. Mike commented how he really felt he was on the Mediterranean.
: NOTO
Our guidebook claimed that a little town called Noto, about 40 minutes away from us, had one of the most beautiful streets in Sicily, so we headed over to check it out.
Ella on a break from the stroller sitting in a little park.
One of the beautiful Churches in downtown Noto (Mike counted over 20 churches on the map of this small town. We did not visit them all.)
You wouldn’t know you were in Italy unless there was a Vespa convention. No, really—it was a Vespa convention.
Looking out on the land.
: RISERVA NATURALE OASI FAUNISTICA DI VENDICARI
Not to far from Noto is a nature preserve that we read had a beach that you could walk out to, so we headed on over with hopes of finding a quiet, remote beach.
After walking for 15 minutes in near broiling temperatures, we saw this in the distance. The beach was jammed with families. The whole thing devolved into an experience that was a lot funnier once we were back in the air conditioned car (scalding sand, no umbrella, Ella pooping in her bathing suit, Ella starting to cry, long hot walk back to the car with feet torn up from my sandals. Enough said). Despite our hardships, the area was beautiful:
And the parking lot was in a little olive grove.
: PARCO ARCHAEOLOGICO DELLA NEOPOLIS
We went back to Siracusa a second time to visit this amazing archaeological park. We didn’t take so many pictures, but there was a 5th century Greek amphitheater, these mysterious little caves:
a limestone quarry,
and many other ruins. It was beautiful to walk through and see the ruins and wild plants. It was another scorcher of a day, but worth the trip.
THE FOOD
Of course one of the main reasons we went to Sicily was the food. I know this post is getting a little long at this point, so I put the food last so that anyone who finds pictures of partially-eaten meals to be boring could just end here. But since the majority of the people we know love to eat—this is for you:
Every bakery and snack place we saw sold these empanada-like confections filled with spinach, or meat and cheese or potatoes. We got some for our first dinner and were pleasantly surprised. They looked a little boring, but were really good. Add a side of roasted peppers (oh Sicily, how I love you for your roasted, marinated vegetables everywhere we turned), and it was a great kick-off for our trip.
Breakfast of bread, gourmet nutella (dark chocolate), figs from the trees out front, and Sicilian strawberries. Plus good ‘ole oatmeal for Ella.
Lunch: local fruit, bread, local cheeses, caponata (roasted eggplant, tomatoes, peppers and onions), and tomato mozzarella salad (my favorite thing in the world to eat—I ate it every day). Eggplant, tomatoes and peppers could be the cornerstone of Sicilian cooking—they sell these ingredients everywhere, they’re in everything, which means everything is good.
Sicily is known for swordfish, so we headed over to the fish store and bought ourselves some and ate it along with some caponata we made. Divine.
This was the best pizza I’ve ever had, and I’ve eaten a lot of pizza—spinach, olives, spicy salami, mozzarella and tomato sauce, but listing the ingredients (as with all good food) doesn’t tell the real story. Every ingredient was somehow the best version—it was so, so good. Mike’s pizza (in the foreground) was a tuna and onion pizza. Our littlest pizza-lover also enjoyed dining on bits of our pizzas without strong ingredients.
~
So there you have it, our Sicilian adventure. At first we weren’t sure that having a small child would work with our ideas of the best beach vacation, but Ella seemed to love it. She loved playing in the sand at the beach, playing around on the large porch at our rented house, and of course babies take naps every afternoon, so we napped too.
This was a trip we will surely reminisce about for many years. It was so quiet, relaxing and just what we needed. Thank you Sicily for a great time!
We Three Travelers 