Clothing in Sicily

Margaret- just got back from our first trip to Sicily. Your question is best answered by asking you - what will you be doing in Sicily? When we toured the greek ruins it was hot, dusty and everyone there is a tourist. There were lots of shorts on both men and women - but you are also "hiking" to the sites. We wore long pants/skirts and covered our shoulders to visit Monreale - as you should in all Italian churches. Palmermo is a big busy city - I would have felt ridiculous in shorts but some tourists were still wearing them. Capris are a great choice but I was cooler in my skirts. Taormina is a very beautiful, very chic city. I was seriously underdressed in the evening in a summer skirt, shirt & walking sandals - could not compete with the beautiful honeymooners in their white gauzy dresses (saw lots of those) or the other vactioners in their expensive resort wear.

Bottom line - Save the shorts for the active parts of your trip - hikes, beaches, etc. Have fun - we loved Sicily.

There have recently been several posts addressing this exact subject of shorts in Italy. You can easily find these by entering the word shorts in the search box in upper right corner of this window, comments mentioning shorts in Helpline will come up first and you can page through them.

Margaret, Karen is giving you some very good advice. My wife and I have been to Sicily twice, and we always pack the shorts if we are going May thru October. (It can get very warm!) But there is a time and place for eveything, and sometimes the shorts just don't "cut it". I also bring along some nice pants that have the zip off legs. This works good on some occasions, but long pants are a "must" at nice restarants, etc.