Best of Sicily in 11 Days Tour

Why Catania?

We thought Catania was the least interesting stop on the tour. My suggestion would be to head back in the direction of Palermo and make it a roundtrip flight. I would consider staying in Cefalu for a couple of days.

Alternately, i'd consider flying out of Catania (that is, no extra days) and spend a couple in Rome.

We were on the Sicily tour the first two weeks of September and added one day in Catania.

When we first arrived I was a bit bummed out and thought there was nothing to do. The WWII museum was closed so this was replaced with a tour of Palazzo Biscari, a walk through the fish market and time on the square. We were filling time until the hotel rooms were ready. After we checked in and went to a nearby restaurant for lunch, a group of us essentially took the RS walking tour. The city has some interesting sites. My husband & I walked down Via Etnea to I dolci di Nonna Vincenza for the best cannoli of the trip. This part of the city has plenty of energy and there is a pleasant park across the street from the bakery. This was the last day of the tour.

The next day we (and another couple) returned to the fish market (it is the best & the people are interesting) before taking the Hop On Hop Off bus to Acicastello-Castellio Normanno. We toured the castle & museum and walked around the base of the castle on the lava. It was a beautiful day; plenty of people were hanging out and swimming.

From here we walked to Acitrezza-Faraglioni for granita at Mythos. For lunch we continued walking until we found some open restaurants. After lunch we found the HOHO bus stop. We were back in Catania at 3:30.

In the evening at 6:00 we went on the Free Tour Catania with fantastic tour guide Agata. She was equally as good as the guides we had on the RS tour. The tour lasted about 2 1/2 hours. Then we went to a local place for dinner. The following day we flew to Venice.

Honestly I don't think there is enough to do to add on a couple of extra days. This worked for us because we researched our options. But who knows you may find something else to do.

People shouldn't dismiss Catania so quickly. The people are friendly & it's not tourist focused which we enjoy.

Enjoy your time in Sicily. It is a unique experience.

How many days do you have available? I would either do what Stan suggested or, as we are doing next June, fly to Rome and spend some time there. You could also research cities within Europe that have easy connections to home in the States (don't know where you are flying back into) and flights from Catania. Some of the larger ones including Rome are Milan, Frankfurt, Paris, Amsterdam, London. We picked Rome as it had a lot of and easy flights from Catania and there are direct flights to our home airport, Chicago O'Hare.

FYI,
I ended up booking a flight that allows me to have one extra day in Palermo before the tour and no extra days in Catania. Anything else was either cost or time prohibitive. I wasn't looking for any additional cities as we'll be spending Christmas/New Year in London/Paris but thanks for the ideas.

Bob

We are doing the December 4th tour and looked into the option of extra days at either end. Both have merits but we ended up adding them in Palermo (after much research and forum reading). We are also attending Christmas markets in Germany and were able to get a great flight deal on Condor from SEATAC and this allowed us to find good connections from Munich to Palermo and Catania to Frankfurt.
Of course, we may find that Catania is also a great place to spend extra time - but that will provide an excuse for another visit in the future.

Lufthansa has a nonstop from Catania to Frankfurt if you want to check out a Christmas market after the tour ends. That's what I'm doing (I'm on the Thanksgiving tour).

Also taking this trip in November. Besides reading RS about Catania, I scooted around a bit on Googlemaps looking at Catania. I decided to instead spend 3 days in Rome at the end of the trip, then fly from FCO back to the U.S. I have reservations for the sites in Rome, using RS Rome 3-4 day itinerary. I plan to take a taxi to start my tour at farther-out sites (I'm staying in Trastevere). Any suggestions for transportation in Catania to the airport; tips or suggestions for taking a taxi in Rome, or suggestions for FCO .... either flying-in and transportation to my hotel, or departing for the U.S.) If on the Nov. Sicily tour why not join me?!*
Thank you.

Catania to airport: just ask your hotel to arrange a taxi. Not far. If you're leaving the day the tour ends (after breakfast), there'll be a group headed that way.

thanks Stan ..