Skiing, Oranges, and the Mafia

Overall this trip, in many ways, has been very unexpected. I imagined the big cities like Rome and Florence to be my favorite places but I was pleasantly surprised by all of the remote cities and villages visited. If I were to travel to Italy again I would probably spend most of my stay outside Sorrento or one of the villas on the Amalfi coast. Cavalese was most definitely one of my favorites. For me, not very many things can beat a sunny day skiing in the Italian Alps.

Arriving in Sicily was beautiful as well; we got to see many of thesmaller towns of the island including Noto, Ragusa, Mudica and Ispica (we’re our villa was located). On our way to our second villa in Sicily we god to stop and look at a citrus orchard. You've never had and orange until you taste a blood orange, it was amazing.

Compared to the rest of Italy I think Sicily has one of the more interesting histories we learned about because it concerns the more recent past. Italia itself is a very young country. It was only formed around the mid 19^th century. And the island of Sicily was among the last to join. In the beginning there was a lot of unrest on the island and the poor police and government presence gave way for the formation of the mafia. The article we read on the economic

history of the mafia in Sicily gave me some interesting information about the mafia and how it was actually formed. In the beginning it was created as a sort of service for landowners to protect against looting and banditry and it eventually evolved to act as a sort of substitute government for the island. Of course we know the mafia is a strong presence in Italy still, so as we toured through the city I thought a lot about how and where exactly this organization is affecting the island and the country today.

Noto gave me a little glimpse, not of the mafia specifically, but of the affect it has on the people and how they deal with its presence. While walking through Noto we wandered into a local shop that sold different types of wine, olive oil, and produce. On the front of the store was a poster advertising their store as a legalized trading company and urging against the support of illegal trade organizations; the mafia. It was crazy to see that the mafia was still such a heavy influence on the market. They are a business that affects every country. Many have different names and motives but they were all formed in similar circumstances and continue to be a growing threat to many societies. In the article it talked about how to combat the problem of organized crime and the conclusion was they only way to fix it was to go straight to the source and fix what made the problem in the first place. Poor institutions give room for crime organizations like the mafia to step in but even if the government makes changes in itself, my question is would it be enough to disband a 200-year-old organization?