itinerary for Sicily and Matera

I think you may hear this a lot, but I’ll lead off with my opinion that 10 days is hardly enough for just Sicily. If you are determined to do just 5, then I recommend choosing either the east or west side, not trying to do both. You should check out cheap flights from Catania or Palermo to Florence, perhaps. Overland travel will be very time-consuming.

Totally agree with Rosalyn: Sicily is a minimum-2-week destination, and even with that much time, painful decisions have to be made. Two nights in Catania would be not much more than one full day by the time you settle in if you stop at the Villa Romana del Casale on the way across the island. That'll cover Catania's sights (and then some), but what about Taormina, Siracusa, Ragusa, Noto, Modica, and Scicli--the Baroque towns in that part of the island? Three nights in Palermo, if at the beginning of your trip when you're jetlagged, will be just two full days. That's minimally adequate for Palermo, I guess, if you don't want to see many of the beautiful churches and chapels. It probably won't allow time for Cefalu, because Monreale is a must.

I note that you plan to rent a car. That will not be a help while you are in Palermo. Simply crossing the street as a pedestrian is challenge enough in Palermo. Although there's bus service out to Monreale, a car would be more convenient, so I'd plan to pick up the car on the day I left Palermo and see Monreale before heading east.

Really, I wouldn't do what you're planning; it would be too frustrating. And it will require extra flights to get to and from Sicily. I hate having to fly in the middle of a trip; at least I'd want to have enough time to fully enjoy the destination.

Many of us combine Matera with Puglia. I'm afraid I don't know what the major destinations immediately around Matera might be. I think most folks like to have one full day in Matera, which usually means two nights. You can do a lot in Puglia in 4 or 5 days if you have a car. A lot of the towns are very small and can be seen in just a few hours. However, Puglia is a long, skinny region, so there's a lot of driving involved in hopping between places like Lecce, Gallipoli, Monopoli, Alberobello, etc. Lecce is a beautiful Baroque city with a lot of sightseeing possibilities and deserves at least one full day (it makes a lovely base), and I think Bari has a nice historic district.

We are going to Matera in March and have booked 3 nights there, as we want to do a lot of walking. The simplest way to get there by public transport seems to be the train-bus combination through Trenitalia: train from Naples to Salerno, FrecceLink bus from there to Matera. The journey takes 4 hours total.

From Sicily to Matera is going to be a long slog no matter what forms of transportation you use. In 2015 I wanted to travel from Sicily to Lecce (farther than Matera), and I found a bus would be faster than cobbling together a rail itinerary.

The train-bus combination I mentioned is not cobbled together; it is a trip bookable on Trenitalia as one through ticket. The FrecceLink bus from Salerno to Matera can only be purchased in combination with a Frecce ticket to Salerno, not separately.

The FlixBus from Naples to Matera takes 4.5 hours and my husband would be miserable riding a bus for that long ( he has a "bad back”). With the Trenitalia train-bus combo, the bus portion is under 3 hours, so much better for him.

Sorry, Lola, I wasn't referring specifically to what you had proposed.

In 2014 we did a tour of Southern Italy and Sicily in about 23 nights. That said, the Sicily segment was limited to Taormina, Ortigia>day trip to Noto, Modica & Ragusa>Catania. We knew we would eventually go back and spend more time in Sicily.

We will be returning to Sicily for nearly a month next fall to visit what we missed and revisit our favorite areas. We plan to spend 2 nights in Rome prior and one night in Catania at the end. We will be using public transportation throughout Sicily.

Thank you, everyone, for your helpful, specific advise. I've been reading RS guide about Sicily as well as learning about Matera. Everyone's experience and advice makes me realize we're not being reasonable to do h We need help to cut out some of Sicily or somewhere else. Here's our rough idea(need to book flights soon):
Total 22 days
April 16, depart San Francisco, arrive Palermo.

April 17, 18, 19 Palermo
April 20, 21 pick up car; visit Monreale; drive to Siracusa
April 23, 24, 25 Catania(or staying Siracusa, or the reverse?)
April 25-29 Puglia, Matera, environs (by car?)
April 30 Fly from Bari to Florence?
April 30-May 3 Stay with friends in Lucca
May 4- 9 Stay with friends in villa outside of Perugia
May 10 Leave for flight from Rome to SFO(maybe 1-2 nights in Rome first)

I am open to suggestions where to cut so we can enjoy ourselves. We are active seniors and this will be our fourth trip to Italy, but first time this far south.

Thanks for your interest to help everyone have great experiences in Italy. Everyone is so generous1

I'm unclear about your dates. Is this the plan?

April 17: Palermo (3 nights)
April 20: Siracusa via Monreale by car (3 nights)
April 23: Catania by car (2 nights)
April 25: Matera by car (5 nights)
April 30: Drive to Bari, fly to Florence, drive(?) to Lucca (4 nights)
May 4: Perugia environs by car (?) (6 nights)
May 10: Fly home from FCO

I'm always severely jetlagged upon arrival in Europe, so what you've proposed would mean just 2 usable days in Palermo for me. That may be all you need if you have little interest in the churches and chapels and aren't going to try to squeeze in Cefalu. [edited to correct omission of "2" in first sentence]

You won't get to Siracusa early on April 20 since you'll have to go somewhere to pick up the car then detour to Monreale. So you'll have less than 2-1/2 days in Siracusa. What are your plans there?

And what about in Catania? That would determine whether I'd want the hassle of changing hotels for just 2 nights. Catania is moving in the right direction, given that your next stop is Matera.

The trip from Sicily to Matera is going to be long. Be sure you have authorization to take the rental car on the ferry. Five nights is far more than you need for Matera but less than I'd want for Matera + Puglia, so I think you'll probably want to limit yourselves to the northern part of Puglia. I'd be inclined to drop this segment entirely to have more time in Sicily. Then you could include all of Puglia and Matera in your next trip to Italy. But that's the sort of traveler I am--slow. (And retired.)

Getting from Matera or somewhere in Puglia to [edited >] Lucca [< edited] involves a lot transportation segments, but I don't see any particular reason for concern. It's not as if you have a drop-dead time you need to be in Lucca, I assume.

You won't have any trouble filling your time around Lucca and Perugia.

I would definitely not spend the night before the homeward flight in Perugia. Too risky for me. It would probably be very costly if you missed the transatlantic flight and had to buy last-minute one-way tickets.

Thank you very much, acraven. Your suggestion makes me have to really consider more carefully. Given the choice, it seems you would choose Sicily over Matera for now. When I saw the hype about Matera, I got distracted and tried to cram it all in. Maybe that's my problem. After more consideration, I'm sure I'll have more questions. Really appreciate any suggestions.

If we go to Florence/Lucca from Sicily(Catania), what is the best way?

I'd fly from Sicily to Pisa or Florence. Check skyscanner.com. The non-stops from Catania to Pisa are on RyanAir; read the fine print very, very carefully; they are a customer-unfriendly airline. On April 30 there's a very early flight and a very late flight. On April 29 and May 1 there's also a 6 PM departure. Bologna's the next-best airport to fly into. Still not a lot of non-stops, but RyanAir as a 5:35 PM departure on April 30.

Whatever you do, don't take the night train. I had a miserable, sleepless experience traveling that way from Rome to Catania. I think the rails are unusually rough in southern Italy. The constant jerking from side-to-side made it impossible to sleep.

Matera is really interesting; it's just that it's quite close to Puglia, which is worth more time than you have. Many travelers would just go for it (and that's definitely not wrong). I just don't like to go to a difficult-to-reach area and see only a small part of it. I'd rather postpone it until I can give it more time. And I admit to adoring Sicily and hating for visitors to see not very much of it after going to the trouble of getting there.

Since I see you are flying from SFO and you are flying about the same time I am in April, returning in May. Norwegian is now flying out of SFO direct to Rome. They have flights on April 15th (they don;t fly on the 16th) and coming back they fly either on May 1 or May 4. The roundtrip flight is currently $470. You could take another flight later when you arrive in Rome since the flight gets in at Noon. Not sure if your dates are firm or not.

Driving around Siciliy is a fine idea for any number of days. But driving from there to Matera is not. I would fly to Naples maybe from Sicily, rent a car there, drive the 3 hours to Matera. We just spend 2 great nights there (Locanda San Martino). Then you could drive to Perugia, and drive down to Rome and return the car there. I am guessing, if you want public trans, you could fly to Bari from Sicily; I think that is the closest to Matera but Matera is in the middle of nowhere. Certainly Perugia, Roma have frequent trains but I don't know about the south part of your trip