This spring, we will be in Sicily for almost 4 weeks. Transportation, rental cars in particular, has been complicated. We are traveling around the perimeter of the island and will be renting a car for the southern cities. The rest of the time we will be using public transportation. Buses/trains will be fine for us, except for the Mt. Etna/Randazzo area. We are interested in wine tasting and visiting a couple of the cities (Randazzo, Linguaglossa, maybe Castiglione) We are not interested in the "volcano" aspects. We've hiked volcanoes in the past. We will be arriving Randazzo from a night in Taormina by Circumetnea (train). I am getting mixed information on the circumetnea. I read somewhere that the scheduling is erratic.
We would like to drive around half of the volcano, Randazzo to Zafferana, stopping for views, photography and wine tasting.
The Circumneta website doesn't seem to have an English language option, I did a google search for getting a website translated and it seems complicated. . . . Any insight into the schedule and reliability of this train is appreciated.
I would appreciate recommendations for car rental, scooter rental or electric bike rental out of Randazzo. We know about drink/drive regs in Italy. Our pace is such that impaired driving isn't an issue. (We picnic and take photos, etc.)
I would like recommendations for wineries. We LOVE small, family wineries over slick, commercial operations. We like good wine, and great wine, but when we travel we go for the "experience" more so than exceptional wine. We once tasted in Vouvray with the winemaker's daughter, in what seemed to be a garage by a driveway filled with children's toys. PERFECT! And the wine was a good "picnic" wine and very inexpensive.
I also would love suggestions for things to see that we might not pick up on in a guidebook.