Not every trip is about adventure. Sometimes you really need a week of rest, of floating from pool to beach to town to bed, of reading whatever you want, of lying in the sun and just simply feeling its warmth on your skin. That was our week in Sicily. And I left feeling as if my brain had been thoroughly massaged. It was blissful, restorative and oh so delicious.
Sicily was gorgeous. Aci Trezza, the small town where we stayed, was perfect, and surprisingly lively with its multi day festival celebrating their patron saint that happened to coincide with the first few days of our holiday. The “Cyclops” islands (home to the myth of Odysseus and the cyclops Polyphemus) sat just off the coast and provided something to anchor your gaze at constantly. We kayaked out to these one day, going right the way round as I pushed us through the slightly larger than expected waves on the exposed side. The volcano, Mount Etna, sat unseen behind us. Angharad and I went to watch the sunrise one morning, and drove around its base, basking in its size and suspicious plumes (this was shortly before it did eject ash and ground flights). We did a road trip down to the south, visiting towns of Ortigia and Brucoli, visiting ruins and hitchhiking into the national park and walking back to the car in the setting sun, followed by a tiny puppy. But mostly, we enjoyed the slowness of it all. I did yoga on the balcony each morning, sometimes walking down to the sea and practicing on the rocks instead. We played plenty of cards in the evenings. We mooched and relaxed and took a collective breath of warm, calm, peace.
I spent so many hours just letting my mind wander. Something I realised I hardly ever did in my normal life in London. Like most, I’m a serial consumer. There are very few minutes in the day when I’m not consuming something, whether it be music, a podcast, the news, a book, work, social media, conversations. More often than not, I’m consuming more than one thing. I forgot how busy that makes your mind feel. How deeply enjoyable it is to consume nothing. I missed the long journeys whilst travelling where I would just sit and stare out of the window. I became addicted to sitting on the balcony and staring out at the view, at lying in the sun with empty ears and eyes and mind. I realised how inclined I am to constantly be on the move, physically or mentally. Not every evening needs to be filled with an activity I realised, I would make sure to have evenings filled with absolutely nothing, not even a book!
Do not be fooled though, I also ploughed through my self-set reading list and forced discussions of potential food security taxes on Angharad and Eleanor. Personally, I’m doing the nothingness to generate energy and space to pursue my interests with renewed drive. Rest is wonderful, but for me right now, it serves as a way to push forward. I think this is possibly not the point at all, but I also think I still have a need to achieve and to learn and to do. This need is something which is increasingly on my mind, and the direction I want to focus it in is something I’m very much grappling with.
So yes, be sure to take a holiday every now and again, as well as travelling adventures. It does not need to be abroad (although somewhere sunny definitely does help). It does not even need to be outside of your own home. Just put some intention into creating a space that allows you to relax. Make it feel different to normal. And take some time to sit in that space and do absolutely nothing.
Whilst this is not the usual travel blog post, it would be remiss of me to not mention the food. I am currently in a deep pistachio phase. If there is a pistachio option, I quite simply cannot order anything else. To my delight, Sicily turns out to be an island of pistachio! So my diet was heavily pistachio based. Here are some of the pistachio items I consumed:
- Pistachio gelato (on several occasions)
- Pistachio crusted tuna filet
- Pistachio granita
- Pistachio croissant (from a bakery and from McDonalds, the one from McDonalds was surprisingly the better)
- Pistachio tart
- Pistachio arancini
- Pistachio pizza
- Pistachio pesto pasta
- Pistachio liquor
- Pistachio spread
- Pistachio cannolo
- Pistachio yogurt
The other major pillars of my diet were seafood and granita. Granita was a very cute daily essential. It is basically a sorbet, served with a brioche roll, eaten for breakfast during the summer. There was a beautifully painted granita van which made its way up the street outside our apartment each morning, offering a variety of flavours, served by a very stern old man.
It’s Italy so I won’t insult your intelligence by going into the detail of how wonderful the many plates of pasta and pizza were. But I will say that I had the best pizza of my life (no surprises that it was a pistachio pizza).
