Temptation Island

Sicily: an island of saints and bandits, paradox and surprise. Well-dressed businesswomen scoot off to work on Vespas, while pious widows in sombre black hobble along back streets. Volcanoes smoulder on the horizon, sunlight dances like sparkling wine across baroque walls, and everywhere indolent beaches lure you down to the seashore. Add to that a dazzling artistic and cultural heritage and food that’s always a delight, and you might wonder why Sicily is one of the most overlooked tourist destinations in Europe.

This lovely little island might be overlooked today, but plenty of conquerors in the past recognised its attractions. The Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards all ruled Sicily at one time or another, leaving behind many reminders of their presence. The first of its great civilisations was Greek, and today the island boasts some of the best-preserved Greek ruins in all the Mediterranean. At Agrigento you can admire the 2000-year-old Temple of Concordia, considered one of the great masterpieces of ancient architecture. The setting of the ruins on a rocky ridge is also inspired: the landscape falls away behind the honey-coloured temple columns to the bright blue of the distant sea. Even more evocative is the lonely Greek site at Selinunte on the south coast, where stubby bases of pillars stick up from the ground like worn-down teeth from a skull, bleached to dazzling white in the sun. The desolation is total; this is history as it happened, and a superb spot for anyone with poetry in their soul.

The west coast, on the other hand, bears the imprint of the Arabs, who ruled Sicily from 827 to 1061. Even the landscape here looks like a slice of North Africa, with flat dusty foreshores, whitewashed houses and monkey-puzzle trees against a hot sky. Towns like Mazara and Marsala still have a distinctively North African feel about them. Bleached, flat-topped houses line their crumbling maze of streets, full of Tunisian cafés where wrinkled men sit smoking hubble-bubbles and playing backgammon. You can nibble on snacks here that still show a great deal of Arab culinary influence: aubergine slices in batter; ammarra-panza (“stomach stoppers”) filled with honeyed raisins, nuts and dried figs; crusty pyramids of deep-fried saffron rice. Equally refreshing is the famous Sicilian granita, a sort of crunchy ice that comes in lemon, mint and almond flavours.

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Sicilian food doesn’t do the waistline any favours, but don’t worry: this is a hilly island, and you always seem to be climbing streets and flights of steps in an impromptu workout. Sicily’s interior is full of rugged hills and secretive towns characterised by a charming, if somewhat melancholy, neglect. The best is Ragusa Ibla never really recovered from an earthquake in 1693 and is now an empty place of shuttered houses, abandoned churches and meandering alleys. The town is also an agreeable jumble of baroque flamboyance. The front of the cathedral is covered in frothy pillars and decorations like spun toffee, and the surrounding streets are full of bell towers, campaniles, curling cornices, baroque doorways and dripping fountains. Overhead gargoyles hold balconies up on their shoulders, leering at the people passing underneath.

And so to Palermo, a somewhat terrifying city of belching traffic and peeling buildings but with an appealing, dilapidated grandeur. It’s worth braving the hassle for the city’s remarkable museums; the Norman palace of La Zisa, for example, houses a superb display of Islamic art and artefacts. And then there’s one of the world’s most bizarre tourist attractions, the crypt of the Capuchin Monastery, which houses the embalmed bodies of locals who died between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. There are eight thousand bodies in the crypt, dressed in their best finery: doctors there, society matrons there, with missing arms and legs like grotesque puppets. A visit is utterly fascinating, though perhaps not for the faint of heart.

Sicily’s cultural legacy might be superb, but in the end you’re bound to be tempted by some relaxation by the sea. The finest beaches on the island are generally along Sicily’s east coast, backed by picturesque towns where old harbours bob with colourful fishing smacks. The best-known resort is Taormina, which has been a fashionable wintering spot since celluloid celebrities like Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren started coming here. The medieval and baroque buildings that cover the hillside are beautifully preserved, and orange trees hang heavy with fruit on the balconies of the main street. Taormina is also renowned for its Greek theatre from which you can gaze across the roofs of the town to Mt Etna smouldering on the horizon. Down below the coastline is decorated with excellent beaches interspersed with rocky coves and grottoes. The air is limpid and heady as laughing gas, the water blue as a kingfisher’s wings: Sicily to perfection.

Award-winning author, Brian Johnston,has written about these Sicilian destinations in his latest travel book, Sicilian Summer (Allen & Unwin).

A delightful account of Sicily's landscapes, food and passionate inhabitants, it is now available in bookstores.