SICILY: Best coastal scenery?

Haven't been to the Cinqueterre, but the views from Erice are pretty cool. The views from Taormina are good, too, but the town is very, very touristy. I loved Ortigia, but for the town itself rather than the views. For pix of Erice go here: http://kwilhelm.smugmug.com/Travel/South-Italy-2008/Erice The coast hike at Zingaro National Park, near Scopello, was pretty good, too.

Google Street View has nearly everywhere in Sicily mapped. You could look at the entire coastline and you could research the recommendations that you get here.

We've been around the entire coastline of Sicily, and I really think you'd need to go to the islands to find something more like Cinque Terre. I agree with what the other posters have said, including the crowds in Taormina, but I think the coastline below Taormina (Isola Bella and so forth) is the prettiest spot. You might investigate staying at Lido Mazzaro.

Just one further thought: Why is Taormina more crowded with tourists than any other place in Sicily? Because it's the most beautiful spot in Sicily...

@Janet - not necessarily. Could be that everyone SAYS it's the most beautiful. Could be all those souvenir shops and cafes drawing in the shoppers. Could be all the cruise ship passengers. I thought the view from Erice was better.

Loretta , 8 days is not enough to see all of Sicily. If you want the relaxation and views of 5 Terre go to the Aeolian Islands, off the NE coast. Absolutley fantastic. Each one is TOTALLY different. You can base yourself on one, (we stayed in Lipari town,whcih was a great base)and do day trips on the hi-speed ferries to the others. Pick up a Lonely Planet guidebook and do some reading about Sicily, and decide what looks good to you. (we like the Greek and Roman ruins, the beaches, etc.)Then spend some time in just a couple of areas. Personally, I think that Taorimina is grossly overrated. Many people that have been there have not seen much of the rest of the island, or have never been on the outer islands. It is a quaint little town, overrun with tourists with an awesome view, but the views from some of the hill towns that the tourists "don't do"; like Petralia Sotana and Petralia Spoprana are equally impressive. But, on one of our trips to Sicily, we consentrated on East coast, with time spend in the Aeolians, a couple of nights in Taormina (no more is necessary) and a few nights exploring the Syracusa area. That was fun trip. No car is necessary in the Aeolians; we picked up our car once we got to Taormina. We have rented a car each time we went to Sicily. We also had fun staying at some of the Agritourisimos.

I loved Taormina. It is so compact and the view of the sea below you, the mountain top above you and Mt Etna to your right......wonderful!!!! There were a lot of tourists during day, but early morning and the evenings were wonderful.

Sicily's coastline is about 540 miles long, about the same distance from Atlanta to Richmond. So, comfortably seeing all of it will not be possible in a week, or even two. I use DK Eyewitness Travel Guide books when ing an itinerary in a region that it a terra incognita to me. They have an excellent one for Sicily. For me, their books are useful for two reasons: (1) they identify the must see sites and provide beautiful explanatory pictures of them; (2) they provide a turn by turn diagram of the must see things within the must see sites. Using their books I can narrow a large region down to a must-see list. Then, I use Lonely Planet and/or RS for the details about transportation, restaurants and hotels. With a tentative itinerary in place, I run it all through YouTube, Flickr, and Google Street View to get a ground level sense of what to expect of these places, hotels, restaurants and drives. It is amazing to see how much video and photography folks have uploaded about nearly everywhere that you might want to visit. Street View has Sicily blanketed so you can wander the streets and drive the drives. I planned a two week trip to Sicily in exactly this way, but the trip was cancelled.

Thank you all for these suggestions. Have no doubt we can't see as much of Sicily as we would like, but I think we can cover the "best of" and begin to prioritize at this point. Getting out my RS DVD tonight for his Sicily show and see in what other ways that influences us....totally forgot I had the DVD set I got from a public tv contribution a few years ago and did not realize it had a Sicily show on it until I was reading something elsewhere on this website.

We spent 17 nights in Sicily in May and still didn't see everything we wanted to! Our favorite city was Ortygia but we liked our stay in the coastal town of Sciaccia and the views from Scopello. We didn't stay in Scopello but would do so on a future trip. Do a quick search and check out the photos from the town.
We also didn't get to the Aeolian Islands but it's on our list for next time. The views from Taormina and Erice were beautiful but we felt that a day trip was enough time for us to see everything we wanted to see.