Sicily itinerary

Why not stay in Ortigia for all 4N? It's lovely, and you can drive to Etna for a day. I'm not sure there's much of anything near Etna but Ortigia and Catania. Or spend your first night or two in Catania before renting the car. I drove into Catania from Ortigia to visit the WWII museum (excellent) and was frustrated by the traffic jams. Well, it really seemed like the whole center was one huge traffic jam. It wasn't difficult driving, just very slow. I've heard there's more to see in the city as well.

It's best to get to Villa Romana Casale as early as you can to see as much as possible before it gets crowded. I stayed the night in Piazza Armerina, then went to the Villa in the morning and afterward drove to Ortigia for several nights. I had an hour or so to wander the historic center and would have liked more and I had a wonderful dinner there.

If you are interested in archaeology, the museum in Agrigento is very good, so allow time for that. Or consider going to Selinunte instead. Agrigento's temples are more impressive (and there are more of them) but Selinunte (which I liked better - and had significantly fewer crowds) has interesting city ruins. I used the electric train to get around - it is vast.

When I visited Monreal, I was staying, carless, in Palermo and took the bus from the train station. I was quite happy to sit on the bus and let the driver deal with the crazy Palermo traffic. There didn't seem to be a lot of parking near the church.

To me it doesn’t make sense to go up to Scopello just to backtrack to visit Erice.

There are no must see sites in Marsala, but it is nice to walk around. We spent a night there. From there we visited both the Marsala and Trapani salt farms en route to Erice where we spent a couple nights. Both salt farms are in very remote locations and the roads not very well marked. Without using a navigation system expect to make a couple wrong turns. We took the cable car from Erice to visit Trapani.

Rather than staying in Palermo we stayed in Monreale and took the bus into Palermo.

We stopped at Villa Romana del Casale en route from the Catania area to Agrigento. Given your itinerary, if you want to visit it, where you placed it makes sense.

All our lodgings, Agrigento, Marsala, Erice, Monreale, Cefalù, and Taormina, had free parking.

Thank you both for your excellent suggestions. My thinking was that since we fly into Catania, it would be a good base to tour Etna. I wasn’t aware of the WWII museum, but if it good, I think my husband would love that. So maybe it makes sense to stay in Catania at least one night before heading to Ortigia.
I see your point about Scopello. I had stayed at a fantastic place last time I was there and that is the only reason I chose to stay there. I kind of wanted to avoid staying in Trapani but hadn’t thought of staying in erice. Did you enjoy staying there? How much time should we allow to go though Marsala and the salt flats to get to either Erice or Scopello.
Thanks so much for your suggestions. They are very helpful.

We enjoyed Erice for the three nights we were there, but there’s little to do after about 5pm, shortly after the day trippers leave. Two nights would have been sufficient. Restaurants closed about 10m. We went to the castle, but even though it was only a couple euros to enter, I didn’t feel it was worth it. One can literally walk around the town in an hour.

Driving up to the town center is a bunch of switchbacks and one needs to be aware of the buses going up or down since they require both lanes going around the corners.

A couple hours is probably more time than you need to see Marsala. The salt farm we visited was Saline Ettore e Infersa. It’s only 6 miles from Marsala. We took a back road to avoid any tolls. The Trapani one we visited was by the Museo del Sale and about 11 miles from the Marsala farm. Erice is 12 miles further, but about a 40 minutes drive. Thirty minutes at each salt farm is more than enough. At the Marsala salt farm on the day we were there, there was a self appointed parking attendant who requested a euro to watch over your car. Even though he wasn’t official (he and I both knew it) and we both chuckled about it, we gave him the euro. He did watch over the vehicles in that lot, so I guess he earned the euro.

The hotel we stayed at in Erice was Villa San Giovanni. It was a basic, no frills hotel, but it was perfectly adequate and had free parking right in front of the hotel. Our room was a cliff side room with a small balcony and outstanding view. Other hotels in the town were on pedestrian only streets or within ZTL areas.

Thanks so much for all that detail. You have convinced me not to stay in Erice. Do you think Trapani is a better option for an overnight if we don’t want to drive all the way to Scopello. Did you go to Trapani in town or just the salt flats.
We are coming from Sciacci, but it looks like we have plenty of time to get to Trapani or Scopello. If we stay in the latter, we would backtrack to Erice the next day.
Thank you.

We spent the better part of a day in Trapani. We took the cable from Erice into Trapani then walked to the historic center. It was a decent distance walk from the cable car, but level and with streets lined with date palms. We enjoyed the day since it was relaxing, but to us, Trapani had no wow sites.

Scopello is about an hour’s drive from Erice.

Thanks so much. All of the comments are really helpful.

Trapani is much better for the overnight if your desire is to visit Erice. I agree, Trapani has no "wow" sites but it has a nice pedestrian core and good access to Erice and the salt flats/old salt mill. We stayed 4-5hrs up on Erice and loved it but you could see in in a couple hours if you were on a time budget. We tend to slow down these days so YMMV.

The drive from Ragusa to Casale Villa to Agrigento is just fine. We did it in reverse on our last trip. There are a bunch of perfectly solid lunch spots outside the entrance so it makes a good lunch stop.

We stayed on the north side of Etna which was really fantastic and a bit more back door-ish but probably doesn't really work with your itinerary. There are lots of day trips that you can take from Catania if you want to push the easy button and see Etna.

Thank you very much.
We are thinking of adding a night or two to explore mountain villages in the Madonie national park area. Any suggestions on where to base ourselves

We travelled in Sicily for 6 weeks a couple of years ago, and found that Ragusa could easily fill two days, without visiting any hill towns. It's a charming little town. Make sure to visit the traditional cart maker Cinabro Carrettieri. We contact them in advance and spent a delightful few hours with one of the artists without any other tourists.

After Palermo, we made our way to our base city of Trapani. From there, we made day trips to Erice, the salt flats, Mazara del Vallo, Marsala, Segesta, Poggioreale, Cretto di Burri, Favignana, and I think Selinunte. So you might want to consider Trapani as a base for a couple of days. I would skip Scopello in favor of Trapani. The town itself is small but has a nice little historic city/town center and some nice restaurants. It was easy to become part of the neighborhood we stayed in (in an Airbnb). The people were a bit shy at first, but warmed up when we made the effort to visit with them. Sitting on the backstreet on the steps or folding chairs was a great way to get some first-hand experiences of local life.

In the Madonie, we stayed in Petralia Soprana for 3 days, which in September was quieter, and cool but nevertheless charming. Since you've got a lot less time, I'd suggest you not stay there more than a night or two. Be aware that the driving is slow going in the Madonie because the roads are narrow and twisty. You can't cover as much ground as fast as Google maps says you can. The peak season is summer when the window boxes filled with geraniums are in full bloom, but for us it was a quiet few down days. I'm sure we were the only tourists in town because we were quite the novelty. Or maybe it was because I insisted on torturing everyone with my Italian! We stayed at a wonderful Airbnb there, too. Castelbuono (full day) and the Sanctuary of Gibilmanna (2 hours) were highlights of our time in Madonie. (See visitsicily.info for more info.)