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Sicily Pre-tour Assist Request

My travel mate and I have signed up for a 11-day RS tour of Sicily. Our tour starts in Palermo, and end in Catania. The tour will not be able to cover the Tyrrhenian Coast, and only Mt Etna in the central region.
We are planning to fly in to Catania 3 full days before the start of the tour. We will rent a car, touring NW towards Palermo.

Questions:
Should we travel to Cefalu? Anywhere else? What route should we take? What other sites should we consider visiting along the way? Are there any places that we should not miss? We will likely stay overnight in Catania. But what recommendations do you have for places to stay for the budget minded traveler?

Cheers, Tonya

Posted by
2743 posts

It would probably help to post this in the tour section.

All the items on Andrew's list are covered in the tour.

I took this tour in March, but didn't spend extra time there, so don't have any suggestions.

Posted by
3961 posts

If you are not already committed to fly into Catania 3 full days prior to the tour, have you considered flying into Palermo and going to Cefalu, etc. from there? Since you plan to fly home from Catania it sounds like a good plan to spend another night there. Great city. We took a Southern Italy/Sicily Tour a few years ago and covered Eastern Sicily. Our plan for a future visit would be to include Palermo, Cefalu, & similar RS route. We also enjoyed, Noto, Ragusa and Modica independently.
Sicily is WONDERFUL!

Posted by
28435 posts

I haven't taken the tour but have skimmed through the itinerary. To me, the biggest omission is the Baroque towns SW of Siracusa--Ragusa, Noto, Modica and Scicli. So that's the direction I'd head at the beginning--but be very careful about driving jetlagged. You probably won't be able to accompish much of anything on your arrival day, so I'd expect to be visiting the little towns (whatever you have time for--I'd rank Ragusa #1 for sure) on Day 2.

Then at some point that day I'd head toward the northern coast, cutting through the interior, perhaps stopping briefly in Caltagirone and/or Enna. Perhaps someone who has actually taken the tour in its current configuration can say whether you will see any of the town of Piazza Armerina before or after your visit to the Villa Romana del Casale. Piazza Armerina seemed quite attractive through the window of my taxi. I'm sure there are lodgings in all of those towns if you don't want to drive all the way north on Day 2.

Cefalu is worth a stop. A few hours were enough for me (not interested in beaches or shops selling beach gear), but some others are bigger fans. So I'd try for brief visit there either on the evening of Day 2 or on Day 3 before heading to Palermo. You'll need time to drop the car. Do not attempt to drive in Palermo!

I think what I've laid out is too much for the time you have available. I'd certainly want more time to accomplish it. But perhaps this will give you some ideas.

If you go to ViaMichelin.com and zoom in on a map of Sicily, you'll see the most scenic roads marked in green. One mostly-green route runs from Caltagirone through Piazza Armerina, Enna, Leonforte, Nicosia and Mistretta to the coast, where you'd turn west for Cefalu and Palermo.

Palermo deserves more time than you'll have there during your tour. It has museums and many lovely churches and chapels.

Posted by
9064 posts

Are you locked into your flights and days? How about staying three days after the end of the tour, making your way back to Palermo and flying R/T to/from Palermo?

Posted by
1103 posts

We were on this excellent tour in April 2016 with the so-called off-season itinerary. This tour included a two night stop in Ragusa, which we really enjoyed. While in Ragusa, you could also visit the towns of Noto, Modica and Scicli. We wished we had been able to spend an extra day in Catania. Also, we arrived a day early in Palermo, and were able to orient ourselves to the city before the tour started.

The answer to your questions depend somewhat on when you are going to Sicily. In the past, the Sicily tour included regular and off-season itineraries. According to our tour guide, the regular itinerary substituted Taormina for Ragusa because Ragusa was too hot in the summer.

We stayed in Rome for two before and one night after our time in Sicily. This gave us more flight options, and avoided the grueling multi-stop journey from the US to Sicily. We used Alitalia to fly from Rome to Palermo and Catania to Rome, and Aer Lingus from the US to/from Rome. This flight option was much cheaper than the alternative of flying from the US to/from Sicily on one ticket. It was so much less that it paid for the extra nights in Rome.