Sicily, Chapter 3

Our October trip to Sicily was our third since 2015. Like before, we were staying in the same villa near Capo d’Orlando (ancestral home of Frank’s mother’s side); and, like before, Nick and Andy would come. But Frank and I knew the coming four weeks would be a very different trip. Our plan was to share our little piece of Sicily with several family members that had never been before. This resulted in a vibrant, revolving door of guests (and a lot of airport runs!). We set the maximum to three at one time (one carful including us) and limited the driving to a 2-hour radius. Although we discovered a few new things, the parameters resulted in a repeat of many of our favorite destinations and activities, but it didn’t matter — we got to experience them afresh through the eyes of each guest!

Home sweet home

L’ Aquilone (the kite), our villa on the mountain
and the requisite local wine delivery.

The view of the Aeolian Islands is ever-changing.

Chores are more fun with Jenny! A new experience was filling our many water jugs at the local spigot. (Great water btw!)

Six-foot-eight and first time abroad, Red models his new roadside-finds wardrobe after the airline lost his luggage!

The Eats

Villa cooking fun — yes, those are spedini!

Everything and anything Jenny cooks is fabulous!

We were excited to share one of our most memorable traditions with our guests — having L’ Aquilone caretaker Tano (a chef) and his wife Sara (his sous chef) prepare traditional Sicilian dinners. Tano’s specialty is preparing the day’s fresh-caught seafood. He also treated us to bottle of his own olive oil — so buttery and flavorful and one he graciously replenished!

Capo d’Orlando: same and different

Frank and I happily revisited our favorite Capo d’Orlando meat market and bakeries. And, of course, we dined several times at the area’s best family-run restaurant, La Perla.

The owner of our villa told us about a hidden gem just past La Perla. At the end of a narrow, bumpy dirt road was a tiny house. Inside, a woman and her grandmother operated a small bakery. We timed our visits to coincide with the morning’s bread coming out of the oven. And none of us could get enough of their flaky and very buttery croissants. Plain? Chocolate? Nutella or custard filled? All amazing!

The weather was unseasonably warm and comfortable — low 70s — for our whole time in Sicily. We made several trips to the Capo beaches and dipped our toes in the tepid Tyrrhenian Sea.

New to Capo d’Orlando is its modern and may I say, quite fancy for its surroundings, marina. In addition to a wide assortment of monohulls, catamarans and yachts docked in the harbor, the complex housed several restaurants, shops and a small hotel. (It was definitely a happy place for Andy!)

Naso: home of Spano family and Lady Gaga

From the coastal town of Capo d’Orlando, the villa is a winding, ten minute drive up the mountain. Five minutes further and you arrive at the mountaintop town of Naso. Naso and Capo d’Orlando were originally one community and there are several Spano (Frank’s mother’s maiden name) graves in the Naso cemetery. The town is also the ancestral home of Lady Gaga (real name Germanotta). We made several trips here as they had a coffee shop that served wonderful croissants and cappuccino. They also had Frank’s favorite cookies — tetùs, a dense chocolate cookie with white frosting. I bake them for him at Christmas but in Sicily, they are only available from mid-October to early November to celebrate Day of the Dead. Every time we went in the shop and they had those cookies, Frank bought them out!

If you’ve arrived here from the email notifying you of this Sicily post, I’ve divided up the previously much longer version to help with the downloading.
Click here to read about and continue with the entire trip.