We will be staying in Taormina, Cefalu, and Castellammare del Golfo and are wondering a few things about transportation. 1) In Taormina, we plan to visit Naxos, Savoca, and Castelmola. I am assuming that we do not need a car for this and either a bus, private driver or taxi would be best? 2) Can/should we rent a car when we move to our next base in Cefalu or should we take the train? When in Cefalu, we plan to stay in town mostly and take a day trip to Castelbuono so maybe we don’t need the car for this leg of the trip either. However, we do want to drive from Cefalu to Castellammare del Golfo, stopping maybe in Monreale on the way and plan to take day trips while in that area. We will also need to get ourselves to the airport in Palermo at the end of our trip. 3) Is it possible to rent a car in Cefalu and drop off at the airport? We really want to avoid a manual transmission and it looks like automatics are scarce, any tips on finding an automatic for a reasonable cost? We have driven all over the mainland Italy and are very familiar with the roads and rental cars, but not so in Sicily. If anyone is familiar with Castellammare, we plan to visit San Vito, Erice, and Isola Della Femmine (all places my family are from). 4) Do we need a car to do these day trips? We like the flexibility having our own car brings but would welcome other ideas. Thank you!
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Colorado Mountains, USA
8027 posts
I can’t respond to a lot of your questions, but here’s my 2 cents worth: First, driving in Sicily was easier than mainland Italy in a lot of ways. There weren’t toll roads to deal with, no construction delays, and much less traffic! We’ve had manual transmission rentals on both trips, so I can’t say how easy it is to obtain automatics.
We’ve used Europcar, who allowed us to pick up in one place (Palermo airport) and return it in another (Sorrento on mainland Italy first trip, Cefalu airport on the second). I can’t guarantee policies with other rental companies, but check with Europcar to confirm your question #3.
That first trip, we drove to Erice for our first couple of nights, after flying in to Palermo. If you want to spend much time in Erice, especially if coming from Cefalu, I’d spend the night there, and not just do it as a daytrip.