It was a clear spring day, about mid- May this year and I was slowly driving the scenic provincial road the SS120, four kilometres outside of Polizzi Generosa, down to the A19 ( most likely to head to the capital) when I glimpsed a scene of legendary proportions, at the No 48 bend.

When I met local shepherd and cheese maker Vincenzo for the second time, his faded jeans were tucked into knee high brown gumboots and he was ladling fresh ewe’s milk, set with rennet, into a large tin lined copper cauldron, fixed into a tiled bench and fed by an open wood fire. The ewe’s milk, fresh from the previous evening’s milking, was creamy.

There is a railway station on Sicily’s Ionian Coast where the tracks run parallel to the sea and the elegant Art Nouveau façade fronts the coast road, the SS114. The station nestles beneath Monte Tauro and Taormina and, trains still pull in alongside the long platforms. 

I have passed it many times and decided to stop one warm spring day in May this year. That day, people were waiting to take a train: a group of four, possibly young Tunisian traders lounged in the once designated, third  class waiting area and others sat back on benches looking out to the sea.