Rome is an insane experience. The Pantheon, the Colosseum, the Vatican—just a few of the ancient structures you can still stand inside today. You can literally see the tool marks in the marble, the fingerprints of countless hours of human labor etched into stone.
If Rome was the only place you ever visited, you might believe it’s the sole heartbeat of Italy’s ancient world. But the truth is, every town—every city—every hillside village across this country holds its own monumental history. You just have to look for it.
Take Scicli, Sicily for example. This town is about as far south as you can go in Italy without stepping into the sea. One might assume that being so far removed from Rome’s epicenter means it’s just a sleepy beach town or a farming community. But they’d be wrong.
Scicli is a UNESCO World Heritage site for a reason.
Jess capturing the first quiet moments of the morning in Scicli.
Scicli feels like a miniature Rome—less crowded, more local, fewer tourists, better food (subjectively), and infinitely more peace and quiet.
Unless you come for the nightlife. Then… well, this tiny town will put Los Angeles to shame.
From 14:30 to 19:00 every day, the entire town takes a nap. A literal, collective shutdown of life. But once that 7:00 pm bell rings? The streets come alive—music, laughter, clinking glasses, conversations running late into the night.
That’s right—you read that correctly: the whole town naps so they can party harder later.
Stone stairways glowing in the late afternoon light—Scicli at its dreamiest.
This morning, as I drink my tea—soon to be followed by coffee—I’m reflecting on the fact that every day in Scicli, I’ve fought the nanna. Yet here I am at 05:25 a.m., exhausted and typing like a gremlin.
Today, I surrender to the rhythm. Today, I nap with the town.
One problem: I have no idea what the official “nap schedule” is. But I do know one thing—I refuse to miss a Sicilian sunset. So my nannas will have to be short and strategic.
The kind of light that makes even stone feel warm.
Scicli continues to surprise me. Architecture that would make ancient Egyptians pause. Cool ocean breezes. Colors that feel like they were lifted straight from a Steinbeck novel. And a nightlife that’s somehow both wild and effortless.
Places like this shouldn’t exist. They’re too perfect, too cinematic, too unreal.
But they do exist. And we’re here. Which means we get to enjoy them—and help preserve them—for as long as we can.
Cotton-candy sky above Scicli’s cathedral — pure magic.