A fter booking passage on the ship from Naples, I spotted the bay of Palermo, the Conca d’Oro. My family was supposed to be meeting me at th...

T he ferry is closed, rough waters in the Strait of Messina. Airplanes cannot fly in and out of Catania airport, too much ash from Etna. A...

I t’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m awake. Done with sleep. My rattled skeleton is still trying to pull itself together. Coughing is painful...

Parental Advisory: Some of these images might make you hungry We're far from the dog days of summer but that was no consolation for...

Il Genio di Palermo I f you are reading this then you know I made it to Sicily from France . From the dark, rainy cold of Bordeaux to the...

La Vucciria and beyond... I love the legend about the Sicilian philosopher Empedocles, who at the age of 60 leapt into the abyss of Etna....

“Se Non Ora, Quando?” I was young, but there were younger. And now they like to think they run things in Palermo and Sicily. And sure, th...

A nother sleepless afternoon in Palermo. Tossing, the noise from outside on the Via Roma. The smoke, the heat, the life outside waiting, w...

T he first Sicilian wines I had in Palermo were in restaurants. I have memories of being in a place with family and they brought a bottle...

in search of Marsa Allah “ W here did you go? We were worried about you!” My Aunt Vitina thought something had happened to me out in th...

Love in the time of Catarratto T he front has been perched above the city for days now. Hot, humid, hovering. Stalled. All the while I hav...

Passing through a cloud of unknowing N otes from a journal, not about my grandfather, but my great grandfather. In Palermo. He died bef...

My grandfather Alfonso and Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa were the same age and from the same town. Both families frequented certain circles o...