SICILY, BUT NO MAFIA

The Italian island of Sicily has a dark and macabre history but it is trying hard to leave its ties to organised crime behind

IMEET my guide Erme Riccobono at the entrance to the Teatro Massimo, the majestic Palermo opera house where the last scene of was shot nearly 25 years ago.

The Italian holiday island of Sicily may have been ruled by the Mafia for decades, but things are changing as locals increasingly refuse to pay pizzo (protection money), while anti-Mafia organisations show visitors how to see this sun-kissed hot spot without filling the coffers of the mob.

Erme is a guide for one such organisation, Addiopizzo – which literally means “Goodbye Pizzo”.

We weave our way through the narrow streets to find a mixture of splendour and squalor, where historic monuments rub shoulders with darker, seedier-looking streets housing an eclectic mix of outlets.

These range from high-class patisseries selling cassata siciliana – the sickly sweet gateau filled with ricotta cream and decorated with candied fruit and martorana (“fruit” made out of marzipan) – to tacky souvenir shops selling sinister memorabilia, a black-humoured nod to the Mafia.

T-shirts imprinted with Marlon Brando’s face along with the film’s memorable logo and puppet string imagery grace the entrance to several souvenir shops.

The Godfather Part III

“This is the sort of thing we want to discourage,” Erme says.

He leads me to a more charming square, home to Antica Focacceria San Francisco, an Addiopizzo member, its membership sticker boldly emblazoned on its door.

The restaurant is famous in Palermo for its up-market street food and I tuck into delicious arancini – rice balls filled with meat and peas – while others nibble on panelle (chickpea fritters), or enjoy a vegetarian staple of caponata (a stew of aubergines, onions and olives).

Erme shows me round some other notable landmarks, including a memorial to the famous anti-Mafia judges who were murdered in Palermo (including Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino), Capo Market, where paying protection money has been a well-worn tradition among stallholders, and the cathedral, where churchmen would meet – and in some cases protect – Mafia members in the early days.

Erme says it is the locals’ united stand which has gone some way to alleviate the climate of fear which once existed, and the violence once demonstrated so publicly by the mob.

But he adds that it will be new generations, those who have not grown up in the shadow of Cosa Nostra, its extortion rackets and its macabre history, who will make the real change. To this end, Addiopizzo has a new arm, addiopizzotravel.it, which runs Mafia-free trips for tourists, incorporating a list of hotels and businesses who refuse to pay pizzo, which tourists can access to ensure their money is being channelled responsibly. Under Italy’s laws, property of convicted mobsters is seized and can be turned over to groups and organisations to benefit the community. Confiscated property includes farms that now produce Mafia-free wine, bread and produce, which tourists can buy, while villas have been turned into hotels and restaurants.

WE MAY SEE A SICILY THAT MAKES ITS OWN CHOICES AND SAYS “ADDIO” TO THE MOB

Away from the glory and the grime of the capital is a much calmer, more serene setting in Lascari, a village in the hills 20 minutes’ drive from the seaside town of Cefalu in the north of the island, where we are based in a beautiful luxury villa with a magnificent view of the coast.

The advantage of staying near family-friendly Cefalu is that, if we want to ditch the car for a day, we can catch a train from Cefalu to Palermo and be there in an hour, or Messina, at the tip of the northeast of the island, in two. The trains are cheap, reasonably comfortable and the timetables are easy to follow. But a hire car gives you more independence, especially if you’re in the hills of Lascari, where public transport is hit and miss and the terrain is hard on foot.

Driving up the hills, we pass olive and lemon groves, spiky prickly pears and purple morning glory weaving in