Sicily Gravel Traverse

Sicily is the Mediterranean's largest island and a landscape that contains the entire range of southern Italian culture and geography compressed into a space you can cross in five days. The gravel traverse runs west from Messina on the northeast tip, climbs the ancient lava flows on Etna's flanks, crosses the Nebrodi and Madonie mountains of the interior, and descends to the salt flats and wind farms of the western coast near Marsala.

Etna is the defining feature of the eastern section. Europe's most active volcano rises to 3340m above the sea, and the flanks up to about 2000m are threaded with forestry roads and lava track that give access to landscapes found nowhere else — active volcanic craters, lava tube caves, and the extraordinary visual contrast between the black rock above the treeline and the citrus groves and olive orchards below. Riding around and across Etna's lower flanks is one of the most unusual experiences in European cycling.

The Madonie mountains east of Palermo are less dramatic but more historic. The highest peaks reach 1979m and the mountain towns — Petralia Soprana, Polizzi Generosa — are well-preserved medieval communities that see very few visitors beyond Sicilians who know them. The forestry tracks through the Madonie are generally well-maintained and the scenery of the karst limestone country is exceptional.

The western sections through the Sicani mountains and into the Belice valley are the most remote and the most agricultural. Large estates (the remnants of feudal land ownership) produce wheat on rolling hillsides that go on to the horizon, and the tracks between them are private agricultural roads rather than public routes. Navigation requires care.

The food quality in Sicily is consistently exceptional — arancini, cannoli, pasta with fresh sardines, and the almond-based confections of the Arab-Norman culinary tradition. The island's cultural archaeology — Greek temples at Agrigento and Segesta, Norman cathedrals, Phoenician harbours — makes the traverse as much a cultural experience as a physical one.

Most riders take 6-8 days. Avoid July-August (extreme heat, 35-40°C).