Sicilian Car Stories (Italy) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget

Sicilian Car Stories (Italy) by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget


We were lucky to have a car in Sicily.  The rental agency in Catania had a problem with our reservation and would not give us a car.

This left us stranded at the airport and forty miles away from our hotel.   The lesson here is that you should always have cab fare no matter what your age.  It took us about two days to straighten out the car situation, but we finally obtained a rental car.

Once we had the car, we immediately set out along the coast towards Messina.  The road was bumpy, because it was paved with volcanic rock from Mount Etna, which towered over us with permanent clouds over its central crater.

We learned Sicilian car etiquette and navigating nuances along the way:

-1 honk = get moving faster…right now

-2 honks = a car will appear turning right or left out of nowhere…right now

-Headlights being turned on in oncoming traffic = I’m turning across you lane right now

-Tiny cars = two cars in a lane built for one car, especially leading into traffic circles

-GPS includes directions for dead ends and former donkey paths in medina mazes in towns located on top of rock outcroppings

-GPS does not include road closures due to fallen boulders

-Parking is reserved for residents in downtown areas – tourist parking is downhill and far away unless you are a tourist bus

Even after we had learned these principles of Sicilian car etiquette, we still had mishaps.  We drove to Taormina to see the Teatro Greco and the GPS sent us through the narrow streets of the pedestrian-only downtown and up to the gate of the Teatro Greco.  We got a tour of Taormina that taxis and tour buses cannot replicate.  We found “the big road” as soon as the police began following us.

The second mishap occurred in Syracuse at the Papyrus Museum on Ortygia Island.  (Papyrus grows outside of Syracuse in addition to locations in Africa.)  We found a parking spot and did not see the very small, obscurely located sign that said the parking spots were reserved for residents.  The sign was written in Italian.

We discovered all of this after visiting the Papyrus Museum when we returned to the empty spot where our car had been.  I also discovered that I could read and speak Italian in emergency situations.  We managed to get a call into the police to find out where the car was, get a taxi, and pay a fine to liberate our car.

Our third car mishap introduced us to the maze-like urban planning of the Arabs, who had once ruled Sicily.  Maze-like medinas were built for house-to-house defense and fighting.  This third car adventure led us to the interior town of Enna, which is located on top of a rock outcropping.  GPS directions here send you up and down steep streets and hairpin turns.

Once we had made it up to the town, we found a parking spot by Enna’s Castello Lombardia and were happy to exit town via a wide road that was built for tour buses.  Halfway down the road, we discovered that the road was closed due to fallen boulders and work on the retaining walls.  The GPS did not reroute us when we turned around, but gave us directions for the same road.

We returned back up the road we had taken and were finally rerouted.  We could not return the way we came into town, because the streets were narrow, one-way lanes.

The GPS led us into a funnel-shaped, former donkey path that was a dead end.  I knew the people who had garages there drove Smart cars and Vespas.  We had trouble turning around and the side mirrors struck house walls when we tried to squeeze back out.

While I was directing angle plays to get the car turned around, two Sicilian men arrived and heads began to pop out of doorways and windows.  The men took over the geometric directions and pushed the side mirrors to sides of the car.  My husband proceeded to drive out of the passage with one centimeter of space on either side of the car.

We profusely thanked our rescuers and set out for the town square with the directions the men gave us in Italian.  (I was learning quickly.)  We watched where all the traffic was going and made our way down the hairpin turns of the rock outcropping.  I was ready for a reposo (nap).

Vertiginous views from Taormina follow.

By Ruth Paget - Author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France

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Laurent Paget Photography 

Laurent Paget Photography

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