Rental car in Sicily

Not an answer, but in Taormina upper town there are several garages that have discount arrangements with hotels. You may want to keep the car for your Mount Etna visit.

There is a Hertz office in Taormina. Last October I rented from Hertz in Another location and was planning to turn the car in at the Taormina office. We decided to keep the car and turn it in at the Palermo Airport instead but visited the Taormina Hertz office to make the arrangements to keep the car a few more days. Though it was during their regular business hours, no one was there, but we waited about 30 minutes and someone finally showed up. I was actually very pleased with renting from Hertz. Absolutely no unexpected surprises.
I brought a Garmin GPS with European maps from home rather than rent one from Hertz. Depending on how long you have the car it could be more cost effective to do that. Plus, you have the opportunity to preload addresses and become familiar with the device before you go. A good map is a must even with a GPS. Driving from Ragusa to Taormina our GPS got very confused and took us on a crazy wild ride through many quaint towns and gorgeous countryside that we wouldn't have seen otherwise. Because we had a map we always knew where we were.
Be sure that you know all of the requirements for driving in Italy. There is a lot of info on this forum so be sure to check it out!

Margaret,
Great info. I thought I would rely on my phone instead of a GPS. I used it in Italy main land 2 years ago and we didn't have a problem. But I will be sure to have a good map with us in Sicily. How far is the hertz office from Taormina city center? That is where our accommodations are. Also, since we are flying out of Catania would you just keep the car and return it in Catania? There is NO parking at our Taormina hotel we would have to use the public lot and I'm concerned about the distance, vandalism, and cost. Some places charge up to 30 euros per day to park. Since the only thing we plan on seeing is Mt Etna while in Taormina, I was going to rely on a tour company or public transportation to take us there. I thought after 12 days of touring Sicily it would be great to just relax a few days before departure for home. Any suggestions are welcome.
Thank you again
Lorieann

The Hertz office is at Via San Pancrazio 53, just slightly downhill from Corso Umberto, the main street in Taormina. It's easy to find and easy to walk from there to the main part of town. Also there is a small parking lot across the road which makes it easy to return a car there. We stayed 4 nights at the Hotel Continental and parked the car at the Porta Catania parking structure. That parking structure is at the opposite end of town from the Hertz office, but was also an easy walk from our hotel. It seemed very safe and was around €15 per day to park there. If you don't plan on doing a lot of day trips it may not be worthwhile for you to keep the car though. We didn't rely on public transportation while we were there, but I know that there are busses to the airport in Catania, and tours would also be easy to arrange. As I did not use a smart phone for nav in Sicily I can't tell you how good cell reception is, but if you have a good, detailed map you'll be fine.

We did fine using our phones for navigation in Sicily, the Dolomites and Tuscany. We had data turned off so just used the "blue dot". Mostly it was so that we knew where we were. In addition to that used a map too and covered a lot of ground, never got lost. But there were 2 of us, a driver and a navigator.

I rented through Auto Europe and got a Hertz car. It was easy to drive from the Palermo city office out of town to the south. I guess that's where you're going too - maybe Scopello? I returned the car in Catania, at the airport before my departure flight.

GPS would be very helpful. I didn't have it :-(

Two years ago we rented through Autoeurope and took the car from the Catania airport. We stayed a week in Taormina at the B&B Sara, which also had a garage. We used it daily for trips and we did not encounter any problems. Above Taormina is a nice town called Castelmola, which offers parking. A car is useful to visit here because it is very uphill.

Once we were very close to Taormina our GPS looked like a dish of linguine because of the serpentine nature of the roads. Someone above mentioned using your car to visit Mt. Etna, which we highly recommend.

Buon viaggio,