With much of the eastern part of the U.S. blanketed in snow, Chicago has been quite lucky as the storms only waved as they passed by our city. That said, it’s still quite cold, so I have been happily anticipating spending a warm spring in Sicily. As I was making our car reservations, however, I kept noticing warnings in the fine print about renting snow chains through mid April:
Note: Winter Equipment
For most Italian provinces, there is the requirement to fit winter tires or have a set of snow chains on board specifically for the type of vehicle hired in the period between November 15th and April 15th.
Certainly, they must be referring to northern Italy, I surmised. And then this week, I saw an article in The Local, an online Italian newspaper: Sicily shivers at first snowfall of 2016
Per the article,
Sicily might be famous for sun and sandy beaches, but on Monday morning residents awoke to the sight of the island covered in snow.
Snow fell on Sunday night, leaving Mount Etna and surrounding towns covered in the white stuff, along with several other towns and villages of altitudes around 600 metres.
While snow on Mount Etna and its environs isn’t unusual, residents of the Aeolian Islands, including the volcanic island of Stromboli, and towns near the Madonie mountain range, also experienced deep snowfall, with many of them taking to Twitter and using the hashtag ‘#nevesicilia’ (snow Sicily) to share their photos.
Ferry services to the islands have been suspended, with a 35-year-old who went into labour on the island of Lipari on Saturday night having to be flown by helicopter to a hospital in the Sicilian city of Milazzo, Ansa reported.
La Stampa reported that schools were closed in several Sicilian towns, and warned of the dangers of icy roads – particularly in more isolated communities – as temperatures dropped below zero degrees.
photo by Marco Triolo
Looks like we’ll be renting snow chains after all. Just hope we won’t need them!
Ciao,
Judy
Blogging In Italy 
