BASKING IN THE SUN

Find the sustenance for mind, body, and soul surrounded by the azure waters and turquoise skies of Sicily.

-  Alex Preston

It isn't until we get there that we realise how much we have missed it. Eight of us-four adults, four kids, all old friends-are holidaying together, and it is heaven. Let me paint you a picture of a lunch. We spend the morning being guided around one of the world's great archaeological sites: Selinunte, a mind storm of a Greek city, the temple's skin-pricklingly sacred, the wheel tracks of ancient carts still visible on the cobbles. Our guide, Gianluca, is a magician, collapsing two and a half thousand years of history with a wave of his hand. It is almost a shock to step out of ancient Greece and into present-day Sicily. We drive to lunch, to a beach not far from the ruins, where we were recommended a restaurant, La Pineta.

It is perfect a long stretch of golden sand meeting crystalline water, Italian teenagers standing in the shallows in their Speedos, their parents smoking indulgently on sun loungers. The restaurant is simple, a matter of paper tablecloths and excellent seafood, washed down with ice-cold local wine. The Mediterranean laps approvingly as we finish our lobster and spaghetti alle vongole, and we feel as if the last of the gloom we carried with us after a year of loss and lockdowns has finally been lifted.