sicily

I really like the island of Ortigia (right off of Siracusa) as a home base. Beautiful walks, great food, relaxing nightlife. From there it is easy to get to the archeological sites in Siracusa as well as the Baroque town of Noto. That should fill 5 days nicely. If you give us some more information (when? how many? likes and dislikes?), I bet you'll get lots of ideas!

With such a short time, you really only have time to go one place as it is such a large island, virtually a country unto itself. Are you coming from Rome? What time of year? Where will you go after Sicily?

Without knowing season or the rest of your itinerary it’s challenging to advise you. You can fly into Catania and perhaps spend your time in Siracusa or fly into Palermo and stay someplace like Trapani. Each location offers tons of day trips. For Trapani, you’d do best with a car.

If you're coming from Rome and traveling in mid-May, as your earlier post mentioned, you can get easy flights from Rome to Catania. Between Ryanair and Alitalia, there are close to a dozen per day. From Catania, it's easy to travel to Siracusa/Ortigia and to Taormina.

You could base yourselves in Ortigia and spend all but your last night there. Travel back to Catania to spend half a day and the night there before your onward flight.

If you want to see more in a short time, a car can be useful in Sicily. From Catania you can easily visit Taormina, where there are multiple paid parking lots. But the driving can be slow getting in to Taormina, so factor that into your plans.

So far I think Laurel's, Robert's & CW social's suggested itineraries are good. The first time we were in Sicily we stayed in Ortigia and did a day trip to the Barogue towns of Noto, Ragusa and Modica. Our Sicily stay was at the end of a Southern Italy Tour. We ended in Taormina and took the train to Siracusa. Ortigia was our favorite location.

We knew we wanted to return to Sicily. Next year we will return for a month long journey starting in Palermo. We plan to use bus and trains. If you choose Western Sicily only, there is bus transportation from Palermo or Trapani for day trips. Maybe Priscilla will chime in with her bus experiences? ;)

I would also suggest RS Sicily Guidebook for planning.

Sicily as others have said warrants more than 5 days. It is a blockbuster of incredible sights.
Look into a guided tour to make the most of your trip. Otherwise u will need to stay in only one location and venture out ea day. Base in Palermo or base in Taormina or better yet extend your trip and see it all.

With only 5 days base yourself out of Palermo with day trips to possibly Cefalu, Monreale, Erice, Segesta, or Siracusa with possible day trips to Noto, Ragusa, Monica, Piazza Armerina. The possible days trips are suggestions, not necessarily to visit all of them.

Use ViaMichelin.com to get estimated driving times if you don't plan to stick to public transportation. For Trapani/Erice via public transportation, I think FlixBus is probably the best bet. The train takes a circuitous route and is much slower.

I love Sicily and would not choose to go there for just 5 days (meaning flying in and out) unless it was for a specific purpose, such as a family-heritage visit to one small part of the island. It's really a 2- to 3-week sort of destination, and I find dealing with airports in the middle of a trip a serious buzz-kill.

i agree with others especially acraven, about the short amount of time. I just came back from a two week mostly driving trip which was fabulous, but even with two weeks there was so much I missed. We spent two nights each in Palermo, Trapani, Agrigento, (one in Piazza Amerina to see the Villa Romana) Ragusa, Ortigia, and three nights in Giardini Naxos. I wished I had spent more time in Trapani (a great deal for day trips, great food, cheap prices) and one more night in Palermo. It is easy to drive the perimeter, a little more challenging between agrigento, piazza amerina, and ragusa. It is a fantastic country. It's Italy, but not-Italy. I can't wait to go back for more.

That's a tight schedule. We just did Sicily in 9 days and it wasn't enough. Hopefully you can go back one day.

You will easily fill two days in Palermo (Opera House is a good tour, only 30 minutes). Do a street food tour as well for half a day. Hop-on hop-off tour for half a day to see more sites (if you want to see the Capuchin catacombs, about a 20 minute walk from one of the stops). Then enjoy restaurants, too many to count. You can then do one day (and two nights) in Agrigento. It's a full day in the Valley of the Temples but the restaurants in the area might have been the best in Sicily so stay the extra night. Taormina is a great two-day stroll day, or get a guide to take you to Mt. Etna