Page 61 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

Mediaset empire. You’ll also come across all kinds of tiny local channels busying

themselves with the minutiae of local life, and running non-stop silent footage of
scenic landscapes when budgets are tight.

Satellite television is fairly widely distributed, and three-star hotels and above
usually offer a mix of BBC World, CNN and French-, German- and Spanish-language
news channels, as well as MTV and Eurosport.

Radio

As for radio, the most serious RAI channel is RAI 3, while the most listened-to pop
radio stations are RTL (102.5 FM) and Radio Deejay (frequency depends on where
you are – check radiodeejay.it). There are several free apps such as iRadio UK
Free that allow you to listen to radio stations from home – great for when you have
wi-fi on tap.

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FESTIVALS

There’s nothing to beat arriving in a Sicilian town or village to discover that it’s
festival time. Many annual feast days have remained unchanged for decades, if
not centuries, celebrating the life of a patron saint or some notable event lost in

the mists of time. But whatever the reason for the party, you are guaranteed the
time-honoured ingredients for a Sicilian knees-up – old songs and dances, a
costumed procession, perhaps a traditional puppet show, special food and sweets,
and noisy fireworks to finish.

Food-inspired sagras are lower-key, but no less enjoyable affairs, usually celebrating

the local speciality of a town or village (with lots of free nibbles, copious wine and
the usual music and dancing). There are literally hundreds of these food festivals, and
driving around Sicily, you will come across posters advertising sagre of wild
mushrooms, ricotta, pistachios, strawberries, capers or any local produce an area is
famous for.

For online information on most Sicilain festivals, visit siciliainfesta.com.

THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL

Sicily can boast some of the Mediterranean’s most idiosyncratic festivals. The
conquest by the Normans is echoed in August’s Palio dei Normanni in Piazza

Armerina, a medieval-costumed procession with jousting knights, while the similar
La Castellana throngs the streets of Caccamo in September. The island’s fishermen