Finding an unknown corner in one of our favourite countries is the holy grail for tourists. For locals seeking to attract visitors it’s a different matter. Which is why the hilltop town of Sambuca di Sicilia, a little over an hour’s drive south of Palermo, but far off the radar for most holidaymakers, is trying to whip up some enthusiasm and put itself on the map.
First of all it offered abandoned homes for sale at €1 a pop – the Sopranos actor Lorraine Bracco was among those who took advantage, snapping up a 200-year-old house with no electricity or running water. Now the council has enlisted Airbnb, which has its own newly renovated €1 house in Sambuca.
Last month it ran a dream-job competition: the winner will live rent-free in the house for a year, on the condition they let out the spare bedroom for nine months (they get to keep all of the rental income).
High unemployment in Sicily’s rural core has driven many young Sicilians away to the mainland’s prosperous cities. Sambuca’s mayor, Leonardo Ciaccio, says: “We’re looking for someone who wants to live with the local population and participate in all the important moments of the community, from the grape harvest to olive picking. We can’t wait to welcome whoever gets selected.”
The winner will arrive in June, but I visited to find out what hope there is for tourism in the area. My first impression was how gorgeous it all was — the countryside is an unspoilt patchwork of olive groves, forests and vineyards, while Sambuca is filled with beautiful baroque churches and its Arab quarter is a maze of stone streets dating back to the 9th century, when Sicily was under Arab rule.
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The Airbnb house is a few steps from a little ceramic shop, a restaurant and the spectacular panorama at Terrazzo Belvedere, an observation deck at the highest point in the town, from where my partner and I enjoyed a picnic in pindrop silence.
I was expecting a boarded-up ghost town. It’s not. While the atmosphere is definitely sleepy, Sambuca is bigger than I thought it would be: 6,000 people live here and everyone I passed in the street smiled warmly.
I was the first to stay in Airbnb’s new dilapidated-to-designer home. The three-storey, two-bedroom house has been transformed with help from Studio Didea, an architectural firm from Palermo. I liked the mix of new and old; vaulted ceilings, exposed stone and original floor tiles contrasting with a contemporary crimson staircase and poured concrete floors.
Designer flourishes include Marset lighting and CC-Tapis rugs, plus fixtures and fittings in the kitchen and three bathrooms by Kos, Bulthaup and Smeg.
Do not expect high-end hotel vibes; this is deep countryside after all and 21st-century Sambuca is a work in progress. Some of the roads had been dug up and there was plumbing, building and restoration work going on. Plus, you’ll definitely need a car.
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On a crisp afternoon in early March, we strolled along the sun-soaked streets lined with orange trees for a pick-me-up at Bar Caruso: espresso and Sambuca’s most famous dessert, minni di virgini – pastries in the shape of breasts, filled with ricotta cream. A clutch of locals gathered around outside for a gossip. At the weekends, Caruso hosts live music, with the occasional cameo from the owner, who showed us some old snaps of himself performing as a drummer.
In Sambuca’s centre we took a look around Palazzo Panitteri, a stately 17th-century building once owned by a noble family, which became municipality property after the ravages of the 1968 Belice earthquake. One of the palazzo’s wings houses an archaeological museum displaying Greek-Punic finds from the ancient city of Adranon — on the top of nearby Monte Adranone.
The palazzo is also the headquarters of La Strada del Vino Terre Sicane, a wine route heading towards Sciacca on the coast that encompasses Sambuca and the pretty towns and villages of Contessa Entellina, Menfi, Montevago and Santa Margherita Belice.
Chiara Planeta, whose family runs the Planeta winery, led us on a tour and tasting at the Ulmo estate around Lago Arancio, ten minutes’ drive from the town. The Planeta family has owned this land for more than three centuries. We sampled four wines, including the locally grown chardonnay that made the winemaker a household name in the 1990s, while demolishing platters of sfincione (cloudlike Sicilian pizza), local nocellara del Belice olives and deep-fried artichokes.
You can borrow bikes for a leisurely cycle around the 222-acre estate, while April to June are the best months for treks in the surrounding hills, Bosco della Risinata, according to Planeta.
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For breakfast the next morning, we ate Alessia Pasini’s still-warm ricotta, freshly made from her herd of local ewes. Pasini’s family run Caseificio Pasini, an artisan cheesemaker in the hills surrounding Sambuca, and offer cheese tastings and tours.
Sicilian hospitality is legendary. We were offered a glass of breakfast wine (we opted for freshly squeezed Sicilian orange juice instead) and were plied with primosale and stravecchio di pecora cheeses, homemade caponata (a stewed vegetable medley with fried aubergine as the star) and the best ricotta-filled cannoli I’ve ever eaten.
The bucolic views (complete with cockerels crowing in the background) were almost never-ending, out over Lago Arancio, across the sea and as far as Pantelleria, a volcanic island 37 miles from the Tunisian coast.
Sicilians love Pasini’s ricotta — as we grazed, a steady stream of people popped by to pick up their daily helping and ask us how we were enjoying Sicily — and we felt enmeshed in the Sambucan community when we spotted her in the town the next day and gave her a wave.
Sciacca (pronounced “shack-a”) is a pretty port town about 30 minutes’ drive from Sambuca. It is home to Sicily’s second-largest fishing fleet, so there are plenty of great seafood restaurants serving up the daily catch. At Hostaria del Vicolo we sampled raw prawns and local fish, plus a pasta dish with a palpable Arabic influence — tagliatelle with red mullet, saffron, wild fennel, pine nuts and raisins.
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Two of Sciacca’s best (and relatively uncrowded) beaches are at San Marco and Contrada Sobareto, or take a short drive west for more unspoilt stretches of sand around Menfi. I found the town vibey and fun; our Sciacca tour guides were Desiree and Anna, volunteers with an infectious energy from the Museo Diffuso dei 5 Sensi, a sort of open-air museum offering cultural experiences across the whole town with a smattering of history, mythology and magic.
We had a go at making jewellery from Sciacca coral, sustainably sourced from Ferdinandea, a submerged volcanic island about halfway between Sciacca’s coast and Pantelleria. And as the sun went down, Desiree and Anna took us on a visit to the Dedalo caves, which according to local legend was the home of Kronos, the father of Zeus. For centuries the vaporous caves have been revered for their healing properties. The steamy heat was like stepping into the bowels of the Earth. It was one of the many highlights of our trip.
With pristine countryside, bounteous food and wine and a splendid coastline to explore, this patch of southwest Sicily might be secret now, but I don’t think it will be for long.
Victoria Brzezinski was a guest of Airbnb, which has one night’s self-catering at Casa Panitteri (sleeping two) from £101 (airbnb.co.uk). Stay at Airbnb’s self-catering €1 home from June 30 (prices to be confirmed). The winner of the competition will be announced in April. Wine tours from £30pp (planeta.it); for guided coastal treks, cooking classes and other tours see sciacca5sensi.it. Fly to Palermo
