Culture, hospitality and sandy beaches: Here's why I think Sicily is a great holiday destination

Proud of their beautiful island and the life it affords them, Sicilians want the traveller to experience the best of everything they can offer

Sicily's cultural cauldron is a dizzying and heady sensory experience and nowhere is it more visible than in Palermo

One of my favourite Sicilians is a man in his 80s named Franco Valone, who lives on a farm near the town of Alcamo. One Easter he brought me to the ricotta cheese maker in the hills beyond his house, then on to the butcher where Franco’s name was inscribed on a tag on half a lamb hanging in the cool room. Later he took me to the fish shop that he described as a jewellery shop and then to the growers of the artichokes that I helped him prepare for the barbeque. 

Licked with herbs, garlic and olive oil together with the wild asparagus his wife, Enza, picked around their house, this was only the start of the feasting that lasted for days on end in Alcamo. Along with these endless dishes, Franco imparted a philosophical gem that has stayed with me: “never underestimate the power of giving.”