Sicily

Sicily is not quite Italy, and it is not quite anywhere else. The largest island in the Mediterranean has been conquered and colonised by so many civilisations — Greek, Carthaginian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Norman, Spanish — that it has absorbed them all and become something entirely its own: a culture of extraordinary depth, a cuisine of startling complexity, and a landscape of dramatic, almost operatic beauty. From the Greek temples of Agrigento to the smoking crater of Etna, from the baroque extravagance of Noto to the turquoise clarity of the Aegadian Islands, Sicily rewards the curious traveller with a richness that most European destinations cannot match.

Palermo and the Arab-Norman Heritage

Palermo is one of the Mediterranean's great cities — chaotic, layered, theatrical, and deeply beautiful in ways that take time to appreciate. The Cappella Palatina, the twelfth-century royal chapel built by the Norman king Roger II, is among the finest rooms in the world: gold Byzantine mosaics covering every surface, Arab muqarnas on the ceiling, Norman arches framing the nave, three civilisations fused into a single astonishing space. The Ballarò and Capo markets, ancient street markets still operating exactly as they have for centuries, are the best introduction to Sicilian food culture — arancini, panelle, stigghiola, sarde a beccafico, sfincione. The Palermo street food tradition is genuine popular food culture, not a tourist performance, and it is extraordinary.

The Valley of the Temples

The Valle dei Templi at Agrigento is Sicily's most dramatic ancient site — a ridge above the modern city lined with the ruins of seven Greek temples from the fifth century BC, the finest outside of Greece itself. The Temple of Concordia, one of the best-preserved Greek temples anywhere in the world, glows honey-gold at sunset in a way that makes the past feel genuinely close. This was Akragas, one of the most powerful Greek cities in the ancient world, with a population greater than Athens at its height. Walking the ridge at dusk, with the temples lit against a darkening sky and the sea visible in the distance, is an experience that renders most other historical sites ordinary by comparison.

• Cappella Palatina, Palermo: The most extraordinary fusion of Byzantine, Arab and Norman art ever created
• Valle dei Templi, Agrigento: Greek temples at sunset, on a ridge above the sea
• Mount Etna: Europe's highest active volcano, accessible by jeep or on foot with a guide
• Noto: Sicily's most perfect Baroque town, rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake in golden limestone
• Taormina: The hilltop resort with a Greek theatre overlooking Etna and the sea

Mount Etna and the East

Eastern Sicily is dominated by Etna, Europe's highest active volcano and one of its most active — a brooding, smoke-trailing presence that defines the landscape for miles around and produces, on its mineral-rich slopes, some of Sicily's most exciting wines. The Etna DOC zone has become one of Italy's most fashionable wine regions, with indigenous varieties like Nerello Mascalese producing wines of elegant, Burgundy-like refinement from vines grown in ancient lava fields. Taormina, perched on a clifftop above the Ionian Sea with its Greek theatre framing a view of Etna, is Sicily's most famous resort — deservedly so, though it rewards an early morning before the day-trippers arrive. Catania, the baroque city built on and from lava stone, is the working heart of eastern Sicily and one of its best places to eat.

The Baroque South and the Islands

The Val di Noto, in Sicily's southeastern corner, was devastated by a catastrophic earthquake in 1693 and entirely rebuilt in a single, coherent burst of Baroque architecture. The result — towns of golden limestone so architecturally pure that UNESCO named the entire zone a World Heritage site — is unlike anything else in Italy. Noto, Ragusa Ibla, Modica, Scicli: each town is a piece of frozen theatre, best explored at the unhurried pace that the warm southern light seems to impose. Offshore, the Egadi Islands (Favignana, Levanzo, Marettimo) and the Aeolian Islands (Stromboli, Panarea, Vulcano) offer some of the clearest, warmest water in the Mediterranean and the particular silence of places the modern world has not fully reached.