Sicily Study Trips

At times as often as three times a year, I take my students studying at The American University of Rome or at Temple Rome to visit the eastern part of the island of Sicily which happens to be my land of origin.  We normally fly out of Rome on a Thursday evening and fly back from Catania on Sunday late afternoon.  We stay at a centrally located 3-star Best Western Hotel where we are given large, elegantly decorated rooms with an amazing buffet breakfast.  Depending on the focus of the study trip, the program might include a meeting with the Mayor of Catania in City Hall or with the President of the City Assembly; we usually go and visit one of the oldest coffee-roasting companies, TORRISI, where the owners welcome us to discuss the coffee business, show the production process and give us a taste of their coffee along with a wide variety of local pastry.  In the past we have also visited the world-renowned CONDORELLI sweet-producing company; a company specializing in raising bees and producing all sorts of by-products; the milk-packaging firm LATTE SOLE which is part of the French multinational corporation LACTALIS; the ORANFRESH company which owns a series of international patents in the production of orange-squeezing machines; the ETIS2000 main printing company in Sicily; the EXXON-MOBIL refinery in Augusta or the SASOL chemical plant owned by South-African capital; the harbor of Augusta which we tour on a boat made available by Italy's Coast Guard; the COLLERONI fruit-packaging company which exports throughout the world; orange groves in Pedagaggi or vineyards in Ragusa.  The trips also include purely cultural moments such as a visit to the craters of Mount Etna (the largest active volcano in Europe), or a visit to Noto (a UNESCO world cultural heritage site), a stop in the historical center of Siracusa and a Sunday morning visit to Taormina to see this internationally acclaimed town and to go to the beach, if the weather allows.  During the trip we also have lunch and/or dinner at typical farmhouses which specialize in the production of traditional Sicilian food and wine.