7 night Sicily without a car itinerary?

You don't have enough time in Sicily even to hit the top highlights, so you're going to miss a lot of good stuff no matter how you configure your itinerary. Your basic choice is to spend a lot of time moving around the island (there are no fast trains) and get a glimpse of a bunch of places OR to select two bases and enjoy them more, with less time spent on trains (or buses). I missed stuff back in 2015, and I had 17 days in Sicily.

My choices would be Palermo (which has lots of great sights, including Monreale right outside of town) and Siracusa (to include seeing some of the Baroque towns not too far away). But I am not interested in classical ruins, rural hiking or wine, and a couple of hours in Taormina was enough for me; it was swamped at the time of my visit.

Mt. Etna is visible from Catania, and I wouldn't spend the time necessary to get closer on such a short trip to Sicily--but I am not a hiker. And there may be wine-related activities in that area.

There are Greek theatres in Taormina and in Siracusa; not the same as the temples in Agrigento, I realize.

I'm risk-averse with an impending flight and would not want to be in Palermo the night before I was flying out of Catania. Go to Palermo (or Agrigento) first. Siracusa and Taormina are much closer to Catania.

Our flight is at 19:50, we're not too concerned! The more difficult part is going to be making sure we get a taxi from Frankfurt-Hahn to somewhere decent to stay that evening before we daytrip home along the Mosel and Rhine.

We flew into Palermo and out of Catania. For your time in Siracusa, stay on Ortigia, the historic part of Siracusa.
Taormina was the only place we didn’t enjoy in Sicily due to tourist crowds although it has spectacular views. We had a car and got rid of it when we arrived in Siracusa. We used a driver service to take us to Taormina and to Catania airport.

I see no way you can get these 4 places into one week, (looks like you have 6 nights) especially using public transportation. I agree with others who have suggested possibly two bases, no more than 3. In 2019 a friend and I did a 22 day trip around Sicily using trains and busses and even a private driver to get from Agrigento to Siracusa. Like acraven, my personal preferences would be for Palermo and Siracusa, and your husband wants to visit Palermo area but since you only have 6 nights you might just want to concentrate on the eastern side of Sicily, maybe Siracusa, Taormina and Agrigento? Would have been much easier and you would avoid backtracking if you had flown into Catania and out of Palermo or vice versa. You will need to give some thought to what interests you and what you prefer to see if you try to squeeze in a third base.

So if you arrive in Catania, go directly to Palermo. It is at least a three hour train ride. Trains were older and not all had AC but they were fine. Ticket prices were quite cheap and we just bought them from machines right at the stations. Those tickets all needed to be validated in the machines on the platforms! Very easy to do. I did download the Trenitalia app to my ipad and frequently referenced it. Busses were also fine. Spend three nights in Palermo (3 nights actually gives you two days of site seeing). There is plenty to do in the city and nearby to keep you busy. If you like religious art consider a visit to Monreale and if you are sacrificing Agrigento from your itinerary maybe join a bus tour or get a private driver out to Segesta and see the temple and ruins there. From Palermo take bus or train to Siracusa and as suggested, stay in Ortygia. Stay three nights in Ortygia. (Alternately, take the bus from Palermo to Agrigento if you really want to see the temples and stay only one night. Then head to Siracusa for two nights.) Siracusa and Ortygia are very pretty and lots to do there too. There is a direct bus from Siracusa to Catania airport for your return flight.

Good luck but you will need to get a general plan together soon and I would have my BnBs or hotels reserved in advance.

7 nights, it's in the title! And as stated in the posts both flights are late arrivals/departures. Thanks for the recommendations. We're narrowing down but would love some more opinions on what places people enjoyed more than others. Guidebooks/some websites seem to make Taormina a great place to stay, but on this board in this and other posts people seem to avoid it.

I actually tried to do open jaw, it just wasn't feasible with our schedule, my husband gets very specific days off, and the airlines fly on specific days to the different airports FROM the different airports. We obviously know we're going to miss a lot - just trying to weigh a very busy trip with a more relaxed one, but I'm leaning on the side of busy since we'll have at least one beachy trip later in the year.

Ok, this might be too "basic" but I'm tempted to just follow Rick's itinerary slightly modified because we couldn't make open-jaw work:

Wed 23 Arrive Catania 20:15, sleep Catania
Thurs 24 Train/Bus to Palermo, sleep Palermo
Fri 25 sleep Palermo (half day trip somewhere?)
Sat 26 sleep Palermo (day trip to Valley of the Temples?)
Sun 27 Palermo to Siracusa
Mon 28 Siracusa
Tues 29 Siracusa (day trip stuff?)
Wed 30 Bus Siracusa to Catania airport, depart 19:50 to Frankfurt Hahn, sleep near FH
Thurs 31 Overnight somewhere near Mosel/Rhine
Fri 1 Train to Stuttgart

Seem reasonable or am I missing something obvious like having the Valley of the Temples as a waypoint between Palermo and Siracusa?

Taormina is so-so. A vertical town. One main drag up top, very touristy and crowded. Beaches below that are scenic, but you won’t be swimming in March. As a base for Etna it is OK. For hiking go up on the path to the town that is higher up than Taormina.
Palermo good, but Monreale over rated.
There are good views from both the above, but there are good views all over anyway.
Seems like maybe you should take the time to do some research or just go with your plan and be happy about it. It is not a bad plan and you will not see everything. Then again, not being able to see everything you want or is possible is a beginning premise whenever we travel. Makes it more enjoyable to know that.
Worse part of your plan is to arrive Catania and go to Palermo only to have to return to Catania. Why not fly into Palermo and out of Catania?

I hope someday to see churches so beautiful that I'd decide Monreale is overrated. It hasn't happened yet. I did find the mosaic sites in Ravenna a bit more spectacular, in aggregate, but there are seven of them. A seven-to-one comparison hardly seems fair.

I literally just explained why I'm not flying open jaw lol

i did a 28 day, public transportation only, loop around the island last june-july. my home bases were, in order, palermo, trapani, enna, siracusa, catania and messina before moving on to the mainland. if you haven't purchased your in/out tickets you could do two things. fly to palermo, and concentrate on the sites there and on the western side of the island. palermo is absolutely chock-full of norman and baroque architecture if that's what you are looking for. it's also a great base to visit cefalu, monreale (whoever said it's overrated all i'll say in rebuttal is, 'to each his own'), agrigento, segesta, even erice. or you could do something more radical (my suggestion) and split your time between catania & syracusa/ortiga and just enjoy the east side of sicily. you will not be disappointed. the not to be missed baroque towns of ragusa, modica, scicli, and noto are on the same rail line from syracusa. on four different days i got on the first train at 6:00 am to visit one town at a time and got home for an afternoon nap! in the evenings i walked around ortiga. from catania you could visit piazza armarina (another wonderful baroque town) and the amazing villa romana del casale, acireale and the town of randazzo using the circumetnea train. i believe some of the etna wine regions are accessible on this route as well. no matter whatever itinerary you choose you will enjoy sicily. i did!

4x2=8. You have 7 nights. If you’re super busy, make it easy on yourself. With only a few days and a transportation day half way though, stay in Palermo (with the possible exception of going to Monreale) and Siracusa. If your husband wants to see Palermo, don’t give him 20 minutes there. There’s plenty to see/do. Three or four days in each is not too much.

Considering you live so close to Sicily, I would spend most of my time in one location plus. Your husband wants Palermo, do that and Siracusa. That gets Palermo out of the way. This trip is about the same as visiting my cousin in NC, which is pleasantly done on a long weekend and often. Relax your change of bases and return several times. IMO

Alright, we're gonna stick with the RS public transit itinerary of 3 nights Palermo and 3 nights Siracusa and day trip from each with the travel night at Catania on the way in giving us as least a view of Etna and a morning there.

If anyone has further advice about trains vs busses for our connections (Catania to Palermo, Palermo to Siracusa), general stuff for those locations, etc I'd love to hear it. We're assuming if we fall in love (which we have with Italy in general) we'll be back, of course. So much to do!

Too much to do in too little time. Given your stated interests and time of year, you should skip Taormina and go directly to Syracuse for 3 nights. You can do a day trip from there to Etna. Then to Agrigento for one night, from there to Palermo for two nights, and then to Catania for your last night. It takes a very long time to get across the island and things could happen. I wouldn’t risk it on the day of your flight.