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Driving in Sicily?

Girlfriend and I are planning trip to Sicily. We are both reluctant to rent a car because of previous experiences in mainland Italy: Rome, Tuscany. Is driving in Sicily tamer than in other parts of Italy?

Posted by
16893 posts

What kind of issues did you have in Tuscany? I have not had any problems in my Italian driving, aside from big cities like Florence and the area around Naples and the Amalfi coast, where traffic was intense. The rural roads of Sicily felt similar to me, but I was riding in a tour bus.

Posted by
7277 posts

Upon landing at the Palermo airport, we headed over to the Europcar desk to pick up our reserved rental car. It was kind of funny -- the rest of the passengers on the plane seemed to be Germans, and they ALL lined up at the Sixt desk, which took a while to get them all served.

Anyway, the highways and main secondary roads were in great shape, and signage was excellent - we needed just a simple map, and no GPS. In hilltowns (Erice, old-town Agrigento, etc.) the streets got very narrow, and parking was a challenge. On Sicily, we encountered no toll roads, no ZTL prohibited access zones, and other drivers were courteous and safe. We didn't encounter excessively speeding drivers - which we experienced on the Italian mainland, and those all seemed to be German cars, not sure the nationality of the drivers . . . maybe some of the Sixt customers from the week before? ;-)

We were there the week of Christmas 2012, so that may have influenced the number of drivers/tourists on the roads.

Posted by
3 posts

Once when driving through mountains in northern Italy we were passed by two tiny cars flying by. One banged into the side of the other without even slowing down. The other driver got out and started screaming at the top of his lungs running around his car pointing first at the dent in his car, then screaming and pointing in the direction of the departing culprit. And Rome could be downright scary. But think maybe cabbies like to induce this reaction.

Posted by
11294 posts

Driving in Sicily is the same as mainland Italy. Driving in Palermo, like driving in Rome, is not recommended. However, getting out of Palermo from the car rental to the autostrade is not hard (a few turns and you're set).

Driving in the centers of some other cities is difficult, because you have to be a bit aggressive at intersections, and because sometimes there are plaza-like areas where cars can come at you from various directions. Driving on the autostrade is really easy (these are new, in great shape, with pullouts every few hundred feet, and very clearly marked). And driving on smaller roads is easy. The only ZTL's we encountered were Taormina and Ortigia (the center of Siracusa).

If you were stressed by driving on the mainland, you'll probably be stressed by driving in Sicily.

Note that a GPS does make things easier, but we found that our Garmin didn't have all roads around our rural agriturismo in the center of Sicily. However, my friend went back the next year with a TomTom, and as promised, it did have all the roads in that area.

Here's my VERY detailed trip report, including lots of the driving and car rental experience: https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/sicily-palermo-caltanisetta-siracusa-taormina