We will arrive Palermo early morning friday oct.23 and take a rental car for 6 days, then spend 2 days in Palermo. We are not trying to ‘see’ Sicily, we will come back later for what we mis this trip and don’t want a new hotel every night. It feels like from Palermo we have to pick either clockwise or CCW and at the moment we are leaning to CCW to Mt. Etna and skipping Taormina and Syracuse. How does that land?
Thank You
I think your CCW plan makes a lot of sense, especially since you’re deliberately not trying to see all of Sicily in one trip. With six days for the road trip, I’d rather slow the pace down and enjoy a few places properly than change hotels every night. Going toward Mt. Etna sounds like a great choice, and skipping Taormina and Syracuse gives you a reason to come back later. I’d also keep your final two days in Palermo exactly as planned. Having a couple of nights there at the end should make the trip feel much more relaxed.
That's totally fine. Palermo and Etna are on almost opposite sides of the island. It's a long drive between the two and then you'll drive back at the end. Is open jaws an option?
What are you interested in seeing?
I’m finding the clockwise or counter clockwise (CCW) references rather confusing. If as stated you’re both starting and ending in Palermo, it would be a loop either way. Etna is east of Palermo (clockwise) but of course you can equally get there CCW. The difference would be doing it earlier or later in your loop. Rather than the direction of your clock, it seems to me the more important question is what size of clock do you have in mind, that is, how far west, south and east from Palermo do you envision going? You don’t have time to see everything, as you already know. What are your priorities? Taormina is beautiful, but ok to skip, however, it is close to Etna which you do want to see. Syracuse is great too, but since it’s far to the south and east that does make your clock a big one. If your clock isn’t the size of the whole island, which it probably shouldn’t be given your limited time, a clock centered to the west could include Segesta, Trapani, Erice, Agrigento, Villa Romana, back to Palermo. A more eastern clock could include at least some of Cefalu, Etna, Taormina, Catania, Ragusa, Villa Romana.
We visited Sicily about 2 years ago. We landed in Palermo and left from Catania - I'm glad we did that. It saved a day of driving to Palermo.
Some people love cities and museums (we do!) but we didn't 'love' Palermo.
We visited:
Segesta
Stayed at Villa San Marco - very good - if you book at their website you get breakfast included.
Agrigento
The Roman Villa of Casale
Stayed at Casa vacanze Le Agavi (The most unique and cool place we've stayed at) near:
Ragusa / Modica and the area
Syracuse
Stayed at Agriturismo Ruvitello C.da Cuba – Fondo Ruvitello s/n 95045 MISTERBIANCO (Catania) (simple farm - good owner, good breakfast)
Catania - day trip into it
Etna - a day trip to hike the north slopes that are a ski area - recommended by the farmer - we used his maps
I put ">>" in front of the two places I would say "don't miss. no matter what"
Agrigento has the best Greek temples
The Villa has the best Roman mosaic tiling
How this loop looks really depends on what your sightseeing goals are. Are you thinking Trapani/Erice? Agrigento? While you could technically drive a coast road around Sicily it’s not efficient, especially itinerary building a short trip. If you look at the map the A-19 is the high-speed autostrada, and is the effective link between the east-west (cutting as it does between Etna to the north a hill country to the south.) Its less a loop than a mostly straight shot,
So, I would suggest looking at it this way rather than as a big loop. If you weren’t interested in stopping in Agrigento or Villa Romana (which are basically on the way and must sees) you could drive from Palermo to Siracusa in a day. With 5 nights you could get all the way over there and make it worthwhile. Use a night en route and that’s still 4 nights. Not terrible.
It’s also worth checking if you can change that flight to multi/city with Catania-Palermo. Catania is actually the “main” airport, it may not be as prohibitive as you think and would save time and hassle.
Thanks to everyone for the input. At this point we are no longer looking west and instead looking east to Cefalu, then down to see the mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale on the way to Syracuse. Past that the Val di Noto and after that things are murky. But making progress!
Cefalu has regular train connections with Palermo. It can be a handy place to return your rental car on the way back to Palermo. It’s a lovely little town, though at this time of year on a tight schedule I probably wouldn’t spend the night.
Sincere thanks to everyone’s input, it really helps. This is difficult for us because we are normally slow travelers and there is so much to see in far too little time.
The current plan:
Oct.23 Drive Palermo-Agrigento ~3hrs no stops, 9:30-12:30. Tour temples ~3:30-7:30 Sleep
Oct. 24 Drive to Villa Casale - 2.5 hrs tour Villa ~ 2hrs. Drive Ragusa ~2hrs. Sleep Ragusa
Oct. 25 No driving. Tour Ragusa.
Oct. 26 Drive to Noto ~ 1:15. See Noto much of the day. Drive Ortigia ~ 45 min. Sleep Ortigia.
Oct. 27. See and sleep Ortigia
Oct. 28 See and sleep Ortigia
Oct. 29 Drive to Palermo. 3.5 hrs plus stops.
Any input welcome.
You're spending 2 nights in Palermo at the end? If so that's really only one day if you're getting in late on day 1 and flying out on day 3
It's a lot of driving and moving around for such a short time.
I don't understand giving Ortigia 3 nights. IMO, it's fine but hardly the jewel of Sicily.
You'll see a lot of places in a short time so that's good I guess.
Hi Chris,
I posted the information hoping for critical looks so thanks for the response.
We have three nights in Palermo, 29, 30, and 31. We have three days, 30, 31, and most of Nov. 1, flight goes out at 7:30.
Sounds like you are advising swapping a day in Ortigia for an added day in Palermo.
Yes, we are moving much faster than we usually do but not sure what to cut out. Normally we would do an area like Sicily in about 20+ days but didn't quite understand what Sicily was all about when we grafted it onto an existing Italy trip, so this is more of an advanced planning trip. 6 days is way too short a time for this.
