DAY 6 | 09/06/2017–Travel Diary
One of the great pleasures of traveling lies in the freedom to choose your own path. Today, for the first time since our departure, we feel compelled to exercise that freedom by straying from the planned route. Instead of descending along the SP 110 toward Tindari as originally intended, we decide to take advantage of our fresh legs after a day without cycling and tackle the provincial road uphill toward the Favoscuro pass.
As we leave Montalbano Elicona behind, the village lingers in the background, framed by a vineyard whose location feels almost improbable: we are, after all, more than 1,000 meters above sea level. With its distinctive humps, Monte Fossa delle Felci and Monte dei Porri rise in the distance, while Salina appears to rest upon the deep blue expanse of the Tyrrhenian Sea.
The road runs alongside hazelnut groves. In the 1960s, a kilo of hazelnuts was enough to pay for a full day’s harvesting work: a skilled picker could gather around 35 kilograms in a day. Today, given the current market price of hazelnuts, that same amount does not even come close to covering the roughly fifty euros needed to pay a farm laborer’s daily wage.
It is a climb we hardly dare complain about, especially after the previous day spent at rest, and it carries us up to the Fontalba water bottling plant at around 1,200 meters above sea level.
The gradient eases at the junction for Favoscuro, where the view opens up and Etna comes into sight in all its majesty.
We continue along State Road 116, winding through pastures dotted with wind turbines. At one point, I notice animals I recognize, yet their presence takes me by surprise: a pair of Andean llamas graze calmly among Sicilian cows and sheep. They are, after all, gentle and curious creatures, and I take the opportunity to walk over to them in the pasture and give them a few pats.
Floresta is the highest municipality in Sicily, sitting at 1,275 meters above sea level. Reaching this altitude under our own steam, fully loaded and with the limited training we managed before setting off, feels deeply satisfying. That satisfaction, however, quickly evaporates when Marco rides on with his rear tire completely flat. It seems the valve is at fault, and I replace it with one we were given by a roadside workshop.
Toward the edge of the village, we spot an elderly man busily carving wooden objects, surrounded by woven baskets.
I am immediately drawn to him, as I often am to older people whose faces bear more wrinkles than years and who carry more stories than there are listeners willing to hear them. He insists on showing me a photo album of his travels, all of them religious in nature. He asks that we send him a portrait once we return. When I ask him to write down an address to send it to, I quickly realize that Salvatore is illiterate, and I spare him any embarrassment by noting down the street and house number myself on my smartphone.
When we reach Ucria, a generous tasting of freshly baked biscuits at the local bakery makes the steep climb toward contrada Pirato far more bearable. This is where the Living Germplasm Bank is located, named after the Ukrainian-born botanist Father Bernardino. Awaiting us at the bank, which operates under the Nebrodi Park Authority, are two staff members along with the director, Ignazio Ligangi.
A native of these mountains, Dr. Ligangi is a living witness to how biodiversity—now the subject of his scientific work—was once, so to speak, a side effect of the Nebrodi’s traditional farming culture. He points out that the jars used to store bean seeds on display in the bank’s main hall are the very same type once used by local farmers to preserve seeds of all kinds.
Cultivars of tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and legumes, together with traditional agronomic knowledge, were thus passed down from one generation to the next, often through exchanges between farming families. Today, family vegetable gardens—once essential to the local micro‑economy—have almost disappeared. With them, there is a real risk that both peasant culture and local cultivars of vegetables, legumes, and fruit trees will vanish as well.
To grasp just how rich the area that is now the Nebrodi Park once was in terms of garden biodiversity, it is enough to know that the Ucria bank safeguards sixty‑three different bean cultivars—a national record, according to Dr. Ligangi. Many of these ecotypes were recovered directly from local farmers and still bear their original dialect names.
The importance of classifying and preserving these legumes lies in the fact that each ecotype could form the basis of a future bean variety whose genetic makeup might prove crucial to our food security. A telling example is the work of Nazareno Strampelli, who, by crossing the Rieti wheat with the genetic stock of Japanese varieties and others from around the world, isolated the Senatore Cappelli durum wheat. Renowned for its wide adaptability, it went on to contribute its “bloodline” to countless modern durum wheats.
In the bank’s garden, legume seeds are quite literally kept alive, planted each year to renew their fertility. Near the collection field, we are guided through the Giardino dei Semplici, where a variety of aromatic and medicinal plants are preserved. There is stevia, now widely used as a sweetener, whose sweetening power exceeds that of sucrose by more than two hundred times; St. John’s wort, or hypericum, whose decoction is also used as a mood stabilizer; aloe vera; mullein, once employed as a remedy for hemorrhoids. Then there are tansy, rue, acanthus, thyme, and the famous nepitella—or niputedda in Sicilian—a wild mint whose scent will accompany us across much of Sicily and which is known for its strong healing properties. Finally, Dr. Ligangi invites us to observe a plant that is emblematic of these lands: Petagnaea gussonei, an endemic, relict species that already populated the Nebrodi area millions of years ago, growing in the shade of oaks and hazelnuts.
Beyond aromatic and medicinal plants, the Giardino dei Semplici also hosts an extensive collection of ancient fruit tree cultivars. These are plants that have long defined the Italian agricultural landscape and, more specifically, the so‑called Mediterranean garden: a plot where farmers, in a land dominated by cereal cultivation, ensured a stable food supply throughout the year by growing not only vegetables but also vines, figs, pear and apple trees, hazelnuts, peaches, apricots, and citrus fruits. Here in the bank’s garden, cultivars of white mulberry, red mulberry, azarole, medlar, ash, carob, pomegranate, plum, and numerous pear varieties are preserved. There is also a vine of strawberry grapes and another, brought from Randazzo, known locally as “a curridda.” As we walk past a row of fig trees, Dr. Ligangi reminds me of another key detail for understanding the importance of biodiversity. If we eat figs at all, he explains, it is thanks to a tiny hymenopteran insect called Blastophaga psenes. The sole natural function of this minute wasp, whose lifespan lasts only a few days, is to pollinate the common fig, Ficus carica domesticus, using pollen from Ficus carica caprificus, the wild fig.
It is therefore essential to recognize the importance of protecting ecosystems as complex structures, and to understand the impact that the disappearance of even small organisms—often due to human pressures—can have on these systems and, consequently, on human life. The role of a germplasm bank, as Dr. Ligangi emphasizes, is precisely to safeguard everything that nature has selected over time in genetic terms and to preserve it as insurance for the future food security of coming generations. One need only recall the Great Irish Famine of the nineteenth century, which decimated or forced into emigration millions of people. Its cause was a late blight epidemic that struck the potato cultivar grown by the vast majority of the population: the Irish Lumper. Today, as a result of globalization, the drive to maximize productivity and profit at any cost, and the resulting industrialization of agriculture, plant ecotypes and animal species are once again at risk of disappearing, undermining the diversity and resilience of local ecosystems. The negative consequences are not only environmental but also economic, in that small farmers and breeders—who are often the true custodians of local species and who work using traditional methods—are unable to compete with market prices. This is why we sought and obtained the patronage of Slow Food: along our route we will meet the producers of the Presidia, guardians of the countless animal and plant varieties and of the traditions for which Sicily boasts an almost boundless gallery.
On this journey around Sicily in search of our roots, we cannot help but reflect on the deep bond that has bound humans and nature in a millennia‑long pact, shaping the living conditions of our fellow islanders until just a few decades ago. In these mountains, probably long before farmers’ gardens came to host, among other things, the dozens of bean varieties now preserved at the Ucria bank, our ancestors were engaged from dawn to dusk in pastoral activities.
According to one of the most widely accepted theories, it was in this context that the tholos, or cubburi, were born. These stone structures—reminiscent in some ways of Sardinian nuraghi or Puglian trulli—reflect construction techniques of Minoan‑Mycenaean origin (1600–1100 BC), hence the Greek term tholos. Around eighty of them remain today, scattered across the territories of the modern municipalities of Montalbano Elicona, Raccuja, Floresta, and San Piero Patti. In addition to serving as shelters for shepherds, some tholos are said to have housed Arabs fleeing during the Norman conquest of the Nebrodi strongholds.
Leaving the cubburi behind us, we descend along the Sinagra valley, where beyond the hazelnut groves the agricultural landscape still offers a sight unique in all of Sicily: the millennial olive trees of the oliva minuta. This ancient cultivar, threatened by the spread of modern plantings favored for their higher profitability, survives here against the odds.
The Piccolo family is an old Nebrodi lineage; Vittoria holds documents dating back to the seventeenth century. The olive trees stand on family land. Formerly a graphic designer, Vittoria owns twenty hectares on a hillside property just before reaching the village of Ficarra, in the district of San Filippo. All the trees are over a century old and still productive. Minuta is the most widespread cultivar in the Sinagra stream valley, extending as far as Castell’Umberto, and up to 800 meters in altitude it proves more resilient than the ogliarola messinese or the santagatese. It is found nowhere else in Sicily and is therefore deeply representative of the local landscape. Its name comes from the small size of the olive. In terms of yield, the difference is striking: 2,000 kilograms of minuta olives produce about 180 liters of oil, while the same quantity of other cultivars can yield up to 350–400 liters.
When Vittoria returned to farming in 1996, she took over the family land. She vividly recalls the olive harvest, which followed the hazelnut harvest, when the olives were spread out to dry and one could almost swim in them. Her uncle would drizzle fresh oil over toasted bread at the mill.
Today, Vittoria continues to believe in the role of the farmer and in fair commercialization of agricultural products—one that restores dignity to those who care for the land with love rather than solely for profit. This belief also aims to offer a future to young people like her children, so that they may cultivate not only the fields but also the desire to stay and look after them.
“These olive trees are far less productive than modern varieties, but they are part of my family’s history and of many others in this valley. Lower profitability is not, in my view, a valid reason to destroy a nearly extinct variety that grows only here. We must fight the idea that our soils and landscapes can be exploited and scarred for easy or immediate profit. Anyone who buys my minuta oil understands this perspective and the sacrifices it entails. And if these sacrifices and this way of seeing things were shared by a growing number of people, we would surely learn to look at the world differently—and to treat it accordingly.”
After leaving us at the farmhouse for the night, Vittoria and her dog Maya head back toward the village. The car passes the dirt track entrance where, next to the olive mill, a “Monumental Olive Tree” stands proudly, complete with its sign, before disappearing along the road that climbs up to the main route connecting Sinagra and Ficarra.
As every evening, our luggage is scattered everywhere. Panniers rest on the bench along the long table under the portico; backpacks lie at the feet of the bicycles; chargers, phones, cables, sleeping mats—all of it still balanced precariously between racks, saddles, and handlebars.
If by day we manage to maintain a semblance of composure and seriousness, if only thanks to the sponsor logos on our shirts, anyone witnessing the tragicomic spectacle of our evening routines would immediately understand that we are, in truth, a pair of hopeless wanderers.
