Month: March 2022

Taormina under Mt Etna by Nneya Richards

The Perfect Weekend in Taormina, Sicily

Updated from original post March 15, 2022 Delta’s non-stop flight from JFK to Catania landed earlier this week (May 21st) with as much fan fare as you’d expect. I’m talking a water archway welcoming the plane on the runway in the tradition of blessing an inagural flight, food and music. I’ve always said Sicily is the Italy Americans want to see when they come over here (see via Instagram). On the same day, United Airlines launched New York to Palermo. Sicilian tourism, steadily on the rise, marked by the success of shows like the White Lotus, has officially reached its new golden era of luxury tourism. Michele quipped today that that New York to Catania flight was really for Americans wanting to head to Taormina. You may have heard of Taormina, a hilltop town on the east coast of Sicily because of its glitzy international film festival or as it’s one of the towns on the magical Mount Etna hiking trail and most recently as the true star of what is arguably the best season of HBO’s White Lotus thus far. The …

eating pizza with Winta

Guide to Black Owned Italy

Last year I introduced Tripadvisor’s audience to my dolce vita with a Guide to Black Owned Italy. But that was just scratching the surface. Immediately after I found out about more businesses and many of you sent me others. The response was exciting and inspiring. Want to know one thing I wish people knew that I have learned while living in Italy? How diverse the country is. In both its ancient history — the diverse Roman Empire — to recent history like Italian Somaliland to immigration now, Italy’s diverse population influences much of what it means to “be Italian.” Coffee from Ethiopia and Marco Polo’s China expeditions contributing to the origins of pasta are far too often ignored and unknown. Often, this history is “hiding” in plain site: William Shakespeare’s Othello, Blackamoor art, the stories of Alessandro de’Medici, the Black member of the famed Florentine Medicis. There was even a Black Roman emperor, Septimus Severus from 193 – 211. To say “there are very few black women in Milan and Italy as a whole” as …