At the Heart of Longevity Environments | Sicily
During our stay in Sicily, the Living Blue Zone team travelled through several villages — including Villafranca Sicula, Caltabellotta, Montevago and Giuliana — as part of fieldwork dedicated to understanding environments associated with longevity.
This journey was more than a simple visit.
It was an immersion into territories where longevity is not something that is theorized, but something lived every day.
Observing and Understanding
This exploration combined several complementary approaches: consultation of municipal records, observation of everyday living environments, discussions with local inhabitants, and visits to places reflecting the presence and memory of generations who reached advanced ages.
Conducted alongside Professor Michel Poulain, this work is part of a rigorous scientific approach based on age validation through civil registry data.
Environments That Shape Daily Life
Across these villages, several common elements emerge: strong social cohesion, continuity of local traditions, and environments that naturally integrate movement into daily life.
In these territories, often marked by steep landscapes and elevation, physical activity is not an added practice.
It is simply part of life.
Longevity in Real Life
Meeting 102-year-old Triolo Biagio was a particularly meaningful moment during this immersion.
He continued cultivating his olive trees well into his nineties, reflecting a life deeply connected to the land, to movement, and to the continuity of everyday gestures over time.
A Collective Dynamic
The journey also included moments of transmission and dialogue, notably at the University of Palermo – Agrigento campus, where Professor Michel Poulain shared his work with students and researchers.
We also had the opportunity to exchange with the mayor of one of the villages, highlighting the important role territories and local policies can play in creating environments that support healthy longevity.
A Fundamental Principle
These observations reinforce a core Living Blue Zone principle:
Longevity does not result from isolated individual efforts,
but from coherent environments that make healthy behaviours natural.
Observing to Recreate
These environments are not unreachable exceptions.
They can be observed, understood… and ultimately recreated.
This is the ambition of Living Blue Zone: to help design places where living longer — and living fully — becomes something natural.