Hello All,
Flying in to Sicily in early September and trying to decide if we should fly into Palermo vs Catania. This is our first trip to Sicily. We are still early in the planning phase of the trip, so currently not sure where our "Home base" will be and the exact itinerary.
I would love some tips on what the pros and cons to arriving in Palermo vs Catania might be.
Thanks !!
BT
Hopefully you aren't planning on 1 home base, it's not a small island.
I think there are 2 things to consider to make a choice: your eventual itinerary, and good flight connections. Nothing else is really different. Perhaps into one and out of the other.
I agree with the poster above. You need a minimum of three bases in Sicily, preferably four. We flew into Palermo, out of Catania. We chose this direction solely due to better availability in some hotels on the travel dates. We found the Palermo airport much easier to deal with than the one in Catania.
When I took the R Steves' tour in 2010 we flew in to Catania and out of Palermo. That worked well since we basically made a big circle of the eastern side of the island. I loved that tour and all the Greek remnants we saw. I suggest you get the Sicily book on this website and also study the tour itinerary for suggestions on where to go and what to see.
We are headed to Sicily in April. We are starting in Palermo and ending in Catania. The flights are pretty much the same, one change. Why did we start in Palermo, no real reason. Just a matter of logistics and a personal preference,
We are also traveling to Sicily in April. Our plan is to work our way around the island. We are flying in and out of Catania because that's the airport our airline (Delta) uses. We could have done Palermo as well. I heard one downside of Catania is the low probability that the volcano will create visibility issues.
To plan our trip I calculated transportation times between some of the places we are traveling to. Unless your trip is short, I think you would want multiple "bases". If you have just a week, maybe you do want to base in Palermo and thus flying in and out of Palermo makes sense. From Palermo, you have possible day trips to Trapani, Cefalu, Segesta, Erice. In my research, Catonia has far fewer things to see than Palermo. If you only base in Palermo, the villa romana, Ragusa and Siracusa are really quite far away.
Been there twice, once in and out of Catania. Once into Trapani and out of Palermo. If you fly into Catania, base yourself in Siracusa. Much to see there and ample day trips South. Taormina is a second choice for a base if you fly into Catania. From Siracusa, You can day trip up to Catania and to the volcano region. Palermo is definitely worthwhile, but you won’t want a car anywhere near there. Both airports are fine so plan any itinerary that works for you. And, picking up on another comment, Sicily is bigger than you might think. Takes real time to move between locations.
Our first visit to Sicily was in 2014. We were on a culinary tour starting in Southern Italy that ended in Taormina. The tour included Mt Etna well. Post Tour we went to Ortigia for 5 nights and day tripped to Noto, Ragusa and Modica. We spent our last day in Catania and flew home the next day. We vowed we would return to Sicily for an extended independent tour!
In September 2020 we scheduled a month long independent tour of Sicily. We were flying into Palermo & flying home from Catania. Unfortunately our trip was canceled due to lockdown. I knew that my forum friend Priscilla did a solo trip in memory another forum contributor (Zoe). Long story short Priscilla followed Zoe’s itinerary. We too wanted to follow her itinerary with just a couple of tweaks. We were hiring a driver to take us from Agrigento to Ortigia with a couple of stops along the way. Otherwise we planned public transportation.
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/my-trip-to-sicily-in-zoe-s-memory/
We flew in to and out of Catania. For us the connections were better. Also because of our arrival time in the early evening, it took a shorter length of time to get to our first night’s lodging. I didn’t want to have to drive to the lodging in the dark after an overnight flight on unfamiliar roads. From there we drove clockwise around the island visiting Ortigia, Noto, Via Romana Casale, Agrigento, Marsala, Erice, Monreale, Chefalú, Taormina, and other sights.
Thanks everyone, great advice !
