Driving in Sicily

Sicily is living life with every dial turned up. More bright, beautiful, tasty, colourful, chaotic, rude, extreme. It’s a place of flaws and perfection. The flawed logic that sees part-time firefighters starting fires so they can get paid to put them out. That sees an ambulance driver kill his terminally ill patients to drive business literally to the funeral parlour and a fat backhander his way. These happened just whilst we were there. Etna’s volcanic plumes smoke threateningly over the richest, most fertile Mediterranean soils and seas. At the drop of a gear, the kindest people morph into mad maniacs on any motor-propelled vehicle. Sicily is unique. And I can’t get enough of it.
Our journey began (as it usually does) by getting lost. In our defence, getting lost in Giardini Naxos is deceptively easy. After we pass the bus station for the third time, we decide to ask for help. A sharp-suited suave man in mirrored aviators, sitting drinking espresso and eating canoli at a street-side table, gives us a friendly grimacing smile and draws us a map on a serviette. He sends us on our way with a, "Regards to Maria Paola from Gianni.” Tell her I’m sending you for the good stuff.
Underneath the timeless opulence of the crowded clifftops of Taormina, Giardini Naxos is a throng of Italian families holidaying. The seafront promenade is full of Mammas and Nonas pushing Chico prams and little kids kicking footballs and licking ices. The beautiful ones rock up on mopeds whilst the glamorous ones sip Aperol Spritz and check their phones. The streets lights are up for fiesta and the sounds of families laughing and remonstrating waft around the sweeping bay amongst the clicking of cicadas in the warm evening air.
Sicily is big. Coupled with the switchback roads, this means that it always takes longer than you think to get there. And you go out each day wondering if, indeed, you will. It was whilst driving in Sicily that I found God. And I have prayed at every Sicilian corner ever since.
“Please God don’t let him hit me... Please don’t let there be a car on the wrong side of the road as I come round this bend.”
There should be a sign for all tourists at Catania airport’s auto-rental which says, “Take the full insurance. Don’t argue. Just do it.”
Fact. Sicilian drivers are the worst drivers in the world. As our Sicilian host, Maria Paola told us,
“Indicators. Forget about it. You wanna know which way he’s gonna go? You look into his eyes.”
And once you accept this, it makes things a whole lot easier. You live with the knowledge that the school bus might well go the wrong way around the roundabout. And, that the cigarette smoking moped driver may well not be able to see you through his smoke-filled visor. All worryingly true experiences. And once you realise that chaos reigns, it’s easy. Just slip on the aviators, switch lanes, slam your foot to the floor and become a Sicilian too.