In Italy there is an annual event during which towns and villages compete for the coveted title of the Borgo Più Bello d' Italia.  Heavily promoted by a popular television travel programme where the general public vote their preference, 20 proud villages from Valle D’Aosta down to Sicily compete to win the coveted award.

This year 134,000 people voted the town of Gangi, in the Madonie Mountains, as the winner. Its natural beauty, clean serene air, vibrant cultural activity, assiduous nurturing of local art and handicraft, deep rooted revered traditions and special culinary attributes were all taken into account.

To the outside world, Gangi is an obscure hill town tucked away in a remote part of the Nebrodi mountains. Italian hill-towns are a well known commodity in travellers’ circles, but Gangi is not on the tourist map, and therefore has not changed much in the last century. Old Gangi looks like a town built by people just a bit tired of being constantly besieged .The  tortuous road that leads up into the ancient centre is so steep and intimidating that only those of us harbouring a secret death wish consider walking up into the centre up to Piazza del Popolo.
The modern traveller cannot help but notice what isn't in the old town of Gangi - no restaurants, no internet cafes, art galleries, hotels, wine shops, tourist information offices, souvenir stands, or any other business that caters to those that don't live in the immediate area. What Gangi does have is a delightful maze of ancient streets and minute dwellings built out of toffee coloured stone and populated by people who all know each other and still stock up their kitchens with bread, milk and crisp fresh vegetables from men who drive by in trucks and hawk their wares by broadcasting over makeshift bullhorns attached to the tops of their trucks or by straining their vocal chords to snapping point. 

Life in ancient Gangi revolves around the picture perfect Piazza del Popolo, which features an impressive, elegant church that contains houses dozens of mummified priests in its grand underground cellar. A regal town hall building with a clock tower and an equally ancient bar complete the adornment of this precious community space.

Gangi is picturesque and quiet, right in the heart of the sleeping giant that is Sicily, on the doorstep of magnificent Palermo and only an hour away from the breathtaking endless beach that is Cefalu... And yet, for the second time running its local council has put a number of properties within the town on the market, each for one euro, in a desperate attempt to entice people to visit and possibly stay in this proud but dying mountaintop heaven.

I’m writing this piece while observing and enjoying the traditional religious processional ritual of St. Helen of Bkara. It’s religious pageantry at its best, supported by the presence of a multitude of locals and tourists packing the Church piazza and parvis. The Church bells took command of the decibel range at 8am when the processional statue of St. Helen passed through the ornate Church doorway, and have not stopped ringing merrily ever since... as is appropriate for the occasion...

From Gangi Sicily to Birkirkara Malta, beauties of different kinds, yet Gangi and Sicily, with all its magnificence struggle, while Malta prospers. Property prices in Malta are sky high while grand properties in  gorgeous Sicilian outposts, well deserving or already in possession of Unesco World Heritage status  are given for free to ensure their continued existence....

We have a lot to be proud of and a lot to be happy for but much, much more to take responsibility and care for.

We should never take what we have painstakingly achieved and acquired for granted. Our biggest challenge at the moment is how to strike the balance between economic development that sustains and maintains our population in a country as we know it and as we love it, and conserving what is left  of what was once abundant natural beauty of our islands....

I ' m sure that with much positive thinking, a good dose of  common sense and enough courage to reverse the environmental decisions that are compromising the all round attributes of our islands, we can keep Malta and Gozo in a class of their own.

Viva Santa Liena!