Before going to Sicily, I read up on everything I could find about what to expect. From current fashion styles, most used phrases, to how to properly order your food. One thing that kept popping up was siesta time, and how Sicilians are serious about their afternoon siesta. Now keep in mind, I live in the land of 24 hour Harris Teeters and live a mile from a Sheetz that I can get mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers at two in the morning, so this concept of whole towns shutting down for hours at a time during the week day was literally a foreign concept to me. Surely this was a tall tale that Europeans tell Americans to create envy………..yeah no. They were serious, and I found out just how serious during a seemingly easy drive from Pietraperzia to Catania.
The drive was supposed to be a short one and a half to two-hour drive. However, if your family is like mine, you get very distracted on your travels. I mean how often are you in Sicily, so naturally we had to stop EVERYWHERE to take pictures and see the sights. That trip became much longer which led to us traveling during siesta time, and sure enough we all needed a bathroom break. We tried to find a bathroom for miles and miles. To the extent that we pulled over and the us cousins ran down the road to try to find anyone that could point us in the direction of a bathroom. It could be seen as a blessing that since Sicily was practically a ghost town at this point no one saw the crazy American women running down the road going “Dov’è un bagno!! Bagno!!!”. With no luck and time running out, if you know what I mean, we get back in the car and take off full speed ahead. Finally, and I promise you I heard angels singing in the heavens, we see a gas station that is open. We turn with a cloud of dust following us, hop out of the car before it was fully stopped, and ran for the bathroom. After much relief, we look around and see in true Sicilian fashion, the gas station had lots of cake and pastries for us to splurge on for the next part of the trip. I did opt out of a cappuccino to avoid this close call again!
We finally get to Catania and find our hotel; siesta time has now passed, so the streets are bustling with life. As we check in, the lady at the front desk begins to tell us the typical information you get when checking in; ie what time breakfast is, make sure you do not forget your key, and so on. She then proceeds to tell us that from 3-5pm everyday the front desk is closed for siesta time. My dad says, but what if we need something during that time. She slowly blinks and responds with “sir it is siesta time during those two hours, you should be partaking in siesta in your room”. It took everything I had in my tired body not to start laughing and fall over especially after our brush with siesta earlier that day. Needless to say, we made sure not to need anything during siesta time for the rest of our trip.
As comical as my first brush with siesta time was, I can totally see the appeal of having a break from life for a couple of hours in the afternoon. 3pm is usually when I start to fade at work and need to go workout or take a walk around the building. However, if you are ever traveling in a country that is home to avid siesta people, make sure you are not actively traveling during that time to avoid “close calls” so to say.
Happy Travels!
-Kaitlin