Favignana, definitely. Utterly beautiful island, no tourists in spring. Can bicycle around the entire thing. Couldn't get more perfect.

CMT: Thanks for all the great info on the Nebrodi area. I can't believe you were in Tortorici. I was there last August to visit family I had never met, as my grandfather was from there. And now my whole family is going back in 2005 so these tips are great! Thanks so much.

We drove around Sicily a few years ago and went to Taormina looking for a hotel. Our car, which was small enough, actually got stuck on a narrow dead-end street and we couldn't move at all. Luckily a local resident took pity on us and asked his neighbors to open their garage doors to allow us to turn around. He did it for us with barely a scratch on the car! Grazie!

After that we wanted out, since Taormina seemed busy & crowded with many tourists, so we headed for Mt Aetna (via Nicolosi). We spent the night on top of Mt Aetna in a "refugio" (hostel style). There was a gorgeous night sky and we it was so quiet and still...we really slept well! The next morning we took the funicular to the TOP. When busloads of tourists started to arrive, we headed out again.

Kelly: Half of my ancestors were from San Salvatore di Fitalia. That's so close to Tortorici. (Maybe we're related.) The agriturismo where I stayed is on land that is partly in Tortorici, partly in San Salvatore, and I think partly in Galati Mamertino.

I was first there long ago, when I was 16, with my parents. I met lots of relatives, including close cousins who now live in Switzerland and Umbria. My father was born in the US, but was taken back to Sicily as a baby and was raised by his grandmother in San Salvatore di Fitalia. The second time I was there was in 2000, and since I couldn't keep myself away long, I was there again in 2002.

I don't exactly know swarms of people interested in little towns in the Nebrodi Mountains. If you'd ever like to plan an off-season trip there with me (i.e., separate trips, but meet for a few days to travel around that area), let me know. (I usually look at any thread that has Sicily in the title, so you can probably catch my attention.)

Does Tortorici have a hotel? I've been thinking that if I ever learn to drive stick shift (or if I have a travel companion), then maybe next time I'll stay in Tortorici when visiting "my" town, instead of staying at La Vedetta dei Nebrodi, the agriturismo. The last two times I depended on rides--in 2000 from a cousin who lives in town, and in 2002 from the owner of the agriturismo. He (supposedly) offers full and part-day excursions for guests. I was skeptical, since it is a family subsistence farm, with just two guest rooms, and not some huge hospitality operation (though I think it's a very nice place--that's not meant as a criticism--but realistically it's just not set up to offer trips AND still be able to operate as a farm). When I made my reservation for the two nights I stayed in November 2000, I'd asked ahead whether I could have an excursion each day. He said I could. My conversation with him was in Italian, so I had a friend who is from Padova and was an Italian teacher get on the phone to confirm that he's said waht I thought he'd said. She confirmed. Then, when I was in Palermo, I called two days before going to confirm again and top tell hiom what train I'd be taking. He DID pick me up at the train station in Capo d'Orlando just as planned. But it turns out that he'd really overcommitted himself. There was no way he could offer full-day excursions for all three days. And because it was a lot more than a little stroll to town (S. Salavatore) from the agriturismo, I was more or less stranded when there (though, as I said, it was very nice). One day I tagged along while he went to some conference re green tourism in some nice hill town town (I think San Marco) where I was able to walk around a few hours while he was in the meeting. We were supposed to go to Tortorici after lunch, but instead I had to wait about four hours. That's why it was dark when we got there. A friend of his unlocked the little folk culture museum for us. It looked like a pleasant and possibly interesting town, and I think I'd like to see it in day light some time. The next day, instead of returning to Palermo as planned in the morning, I stayed until much later, and he gave me a nice mini tour of Galati Mamertino, Frazzano, and Longi. At least while waiting around I got to see cheese being made.

The funicular didn't go to the top. Here's what it looks like nowdays...

http://www.pbase.com/image/16146681

Our first night in Taormina we ate a tiny restaurant outside under a lemon tree. The meal was simply amazing, including the meatball baked in lemon leaves. It was one of our best meals in Italy and it was like $35 for the 4 of us with lots of wine.

For me, the best part of Sicily was the smell of jasmine.

We made a ground veal wrapped in lemon leaves dish in my cooking class near Taormina. I have the recipe somewhere. What I don't have is lemon leaves!

When I was in Sicily in May, what I smelled most was citrus blossoms--that scent they call "zagara." The smells were different in November.

The smell of the flowers, that's definitely a memory. That island is practically all orange and yellow in April and May.

cmt - There must be some places to get lemon leaves, maybe a florist. The Barefoot Condessa (Ina Garten?) on Food Network always talks about using them to decorate plates and stuff.

Now I'm on a search for lemon leaves.

Ooh no, I wouldn't cook with lemon leaves from a florist! They'd probably have some toxic preservatives or pesticides or growth retardants or antidesiccants or something like that on them. You need to get ones sold for culinary use.

If you live in FL or California you should be able to get them.

I know that kaffir lime leaves are sometimes sold in asain groceries, but I think they are much more pungent than regular lemon leaves, or at least different.

I know...plant some lemon seeds! You can grow a little house plant. It will never mature enough to bear fruit, but a lemon leaf is a lemon leaf. when I was a child, I had lemon or orange or grapefruit trees in post, which my father had encouraged me to plant for fun. (I don't know what they were because I'd plant a bunch of pits and only a few would germinante long after I tucked them into the soil.)

CMT: Unfortunately, there is no hotel in Tortorici. There are just a group of houses for rent in the outskirts of town. My plan right now is to go in the summer of 2005, because of my uncles school schedule.

I went to that museum too. My cousin called the towns tourism guy and he came over and unlocked it for us. And he took us to the foundry where they have been casting bells for a few hundred years. We walked all over visiting churches and just wandering. So I am really looking forward to returning and spending more time in the area. I was thinking the thing to do would be to stay in Capo d'Orlando and rent a car since there is more activity at night in Capo d'Orlando so it would be an easier location for dinner, etc. But that could change with time.

You never know, we may be related in some distant way. I found a distant cousin on the internet last summer and we have talked a couple times to compare notes on our trips to Tortorici. My grandfather was from Tortorici but we also have some relatives in Bronte (I found their businesses website- which is my last name- and contacted them) and Capo d'Orlando now according to the cousin I met last summer in Tortorici.

If you are there next summer at the same time we will have to meet and compare info.

I never travel in summer (used to in my 20s when I was a teacher), but I'd love to hear about your experience next summer.

I was amazed how easy it is to get to S. Salvatore di Fitalia from Capo d'Orlando now that there's a perfectly good modern road. But I think it's worth having the experience of staying right there--if not in the town of Tortorici, then at least in an agriturismo on the outskirts. Some of the free print publications, and possibly the website, of the Nebrodi Mts. park list lodging in the parklands. You could stay in one of these places, and have a more of a feel for the local area. If you can't find the list online or can't find where to order the booklets, I can try to find the ones I picked up in 2000. The place where I stay will not be listed, becaue it is technically not within the borders of the part. The name is La Vedetta dei Nebrodi. (If you do decide to go there, deal with them by phone, and don't expect replies to letters.) You can have just breakfast there or also have lunch and supper. You would be eating exactly what the owners are eating in their family--simple meals from pure ingredients. They make their own cheeses and bread and jams, and raise their own nuts and lamb and goat, and also oranges on a different property that is not os high up and is warmer. The woods and fields have an endless supply of wild greens, and they always have loads of wild mushrooms on hand, so if you like porcini, you may get your fill. That whole area is full of nut trees, especially hazelnuts.

I stayed in Capo d'Orlando one night before going to S. Salvatore in 2000. It was too early for beach season, but I think it's a beach resort for Sicilians and maybe for some mainland Italians. It's a medium-busy provincial town and commercial center, and now that there are modern roads, I think more people are able to live in their little home towns and commute to jobs in Capo d'Orlando. There's a park where the town comes out for the evening passeggiata. You're right that it is easy to find restaurants there. I had three meals there: a very good, not expensive meal of seafood and vegetables somewhere across from the beach, a very good pizza, and a so-so lunch at my hotel when I first arrived.

Capo d'Orlando is fine and convenient. But I just think you'd get more into the whole mood and rhythm of the Nebrodi hilltowns if you stay in the boondocks instead of in a busy little commercial town.

If you're in that are, you should definitely try to visit Tindari, which is right near Patti, along the coast, east of Capo d'Orlando. Don't miss the archeological site there. You might want to read up un the history and significance of the black madonna in south Italian/Sicilian religious and folk culture before you go to the cathedral (I didn't, unfortunately). I wonder whether Patti itself is interesting to visit.

Bronte is near Etna?

I just found that La Vedetta has a website. This is something new. Here's the url: http://www.vedettadeinebrodi.it/ They have e-mail, but I don't know whether they reply to it. NO English spoken there.

I found my Parco dei Nebrodi hotel list.

In Bronte:
Parco dell'Etna
C. da Borgonuovo
tel. 681907


in San Fratello (to the west of Tortorici, a little more distant than Capo d'Orlando, must seems like a very nice town to stay in, I think):

Albergo Monte Soro
Via Roma 23
tel. 794120
(postal code 0941)

There are also hotels within the parklands listed in: Caronia, Cerami, Cesarò, Mistretta, Randazzo, Sant'Agata Militello, Santo Stefano di Camastra.

You're probably right that Capo d'orlando is the most practical choice.

Good morning, Bella Sicilia1.1. the pasta con sarde in Palermo...2. The dolce thruout the island..3. Cefalu and its duomo. 4.Siracusa, its Ortigia,
and for some unknown reason, the Fonte Aretusa...5.Segusta, Selinunte, and the Villa at Pza. Armerina..6. its music and again its food.....
Richard of LaGrange Park, Il..

Another question ... has anyone been to Polizzi Generosa, Petralia Sottana, or Gangi? We will be staying in an agritourismo near Gangi for four days in October and would love to know which towns in that area you found the most interesting, friendly and accessible by car. Thank you. Your responses are so helpful.

Will anyone post about some other small towns and less visited parts of Sicily?

Does anyone have favorite books/novels that center around Sicily that I could recommend to my husband for reading before we go there? Thanks!

You can try any of the many works by Pirandello, Verga, or Sciascia or other well known Sicilian writers. For something lighter, there are mysteries by Camilleri. For light, but informative, nonfiction reading there's On Persephone's Isle by M.T. Simeti (an American living in Sicily), and for food history there's Pomp and Sustenance by the same writer..

Thanks CMT for the suggestions. The hubs does NO planning for our trips but does like to read novels/nonfiction about the place on the plane or when we get back.This allows him to suddenly become the "authority" on the place!Ah, the games we play..............

I had a fabulous meal in the tiny beach town of Porto Paolo, west of Agrigento. It's really a hidden gem. The entire West Coast of Sicily is much less touristed and really facinating. Too many details to put down here, but if you would like to see my photos and travelogue, please go to http://www.wired2theworld.com