A dirty old Italian mafioso just won’t do

All I can see in front of me is an expanse of still blue that stretches out into a powdery sky. This balcony is set on a cliff in Marinella di Selinunte, a small beach town next to the Selinunte ruins in Castelvetrano on the South Coast of Sicily.

In the background Edith Piaff and Pavarotti sets the mood. Around me I see potted cacti and the smiling faces of good friends. To the right the Selinunte acropolis and its five temples tower over it all.

Could anything be more perfect? Yes, actually. I keep telling myself that I would not go back to Italy without a great love by my side. I’ve travelled to Tuscany, Rome and Venice and all of these have managed to highlight the absence of love and passion for which every little intimate street corner seems to shout.

Sicily is no different. The food, ah, the sensory flavours of sun ripened tomatoes, plump olives, fresh-fresh garlic and parsley, flavourful fennel, Italian anchovies and, of course, the revered celery. Sicilian food is so sexy and never perfectly complete without romance. And yet; a dirty old Italian mafioso won’t do. What? Yes I know I’m picky!

Daydreams aside we decide to have a pizza at Ristorante Baffo’s in the area, which ends up being a bit touristy and disappointing especially after the home made pizza’s we fired up in the pizza oven at our villa a few days earlier. Then there is the free carafe of Sicilian wine, which is known for having a typically higher alcohol content than other wines in the region. At most restaurants in Sicily some house wine is included with the meal. However between my wine loving friends from the Rhine Valley and the Cape Winelands we find these wines undrinkable and prefer to pay for our own bottle of Mandrarossa or Planeta wines instead.

By the time we leave for home the still night air envelops me like a big hug and I fall asleep happily wined and dreaming of a hot date for my next trip to Italy.