"Two-part" travel itinerary advice requested.

It will be quite hot when you are in Sicily. Stay to the west of Palermo , by the water San Vito Lo Capo. It may be crowded as you are traveling on Europe’s holiday time. Cefalú is on the water, east of Palermo by train or car.

Thank you. We thought about pushing it into September for cooler weather, but then the hours of sunshine decrease and the rain begins to increase, on average. https://www.holiday-weather.com/sicily/averages/

Rick has a new guidebook to Sicily that I'm sure would be very helpful. It wasn't available at the time of my 2015 trip.

Palermo definitely has enough sights to fill the time you'll have with your family. Don't miss the basilica at Monreale, which is accessible by public bus if you don't want to spend the money on taxis. If you have extra time after enjoying the archaeological museum, the markets and the churches/chapels, a day-trip to Cefalu is easy by train.

I really liked Palermo (I'm a big-city person), but my favorite part of Sicily was the southeast. Ortygia, the medieval part of Siracusa, is charming, and there are several lovely baroque towns inland from Siracusa: Ragusa, Noto, Modica and Scicli. All can be reached by public transportation, though not necessarily terribly efficiently. If you rented a car for a few days you could spend some time at a hotel in that area and not need to take buses or trains in and out of Siracusa every day. This is the other area I'd offer as a possibility for your family time, but there would be more out-of-town travel if you opted for Siracusa rather than Palermo, and there would be the extra transportation to get to Siracusa from the Catania airport.

Siracusa is connected to Catania by train (and I assume also by bus, and it seemed to me that every bus leaving Catania stopped at the airport). Going beyond Catania you have Taormina to the north, which is very touristy but also lovely. If you arrive at Catania, you can see that city (nice historic district, WWII museum, cathedral) and Taormina over the course of a couple of days, then head down to Siracusa for a while.

After Siracusa and the baroque villages, you can travel through the interior of the island (less touristy than the coastline) on the way to Palermo. Piazza Armerina looked like an attractive place when I passed through it on the way to the nearby Villa Romana del Casale (fabulous mosaics). Enna and Caltagirone were worthwhile stops.

A final key area for me was Trapani/Erice in the west.

I am not a fan of classical sites, so I did not go to Agrigento, Segesta or Selinunte, but I'm sure Rick covers them in his book. I liked the archeological park in Siracusa. It has a Greek theatre. There's also a theatre in Taormina.

I'm putting my vote in for Ortigia. You only have a few days and Ortigia can serve as a good base for a day trip to one of the Baroque cities nearby. You also have the Greek and Roman ruins right there in Siracusa (some on Ortigia also). I've been there a couple of times, always late June. Yes, it's hot but you're surrounded by water and the breezes can be very refreshing. Shopping, eating, drinking, walking, swimming and plenty of local interest will make those days go by very quickly, too quickly. The evening hours can be magical. Just roam around. Stop for a drink in a beautiful piazza (there are several). It's good, relaxing, family time. From Catania you can take either the train or bus to Siracusa. The stations are just about across the street from each other. You won't want to probably but it isn't a bad walk at all to the island. A definite, in my book, is a hotel or apartment (my favorite) with an expansive water view from a patio or deck. The sunsets are beautiful.
Malta is a completely different experience from Italy! My friends and I can't wait to get back there!
Before flying out from Naples, could I suggest spending a few days in Sorrento? It makes a great place for day trip along the Amalfi Coast, to Capri, Pompeii, and Ercolano. Amazing sea food! Sometimes I think I keep their economy going all by myself - they have the most beautiful linen shirts! Those are the best souvenirs!

I might be missing it, but do you have the Malta portion sorted?
Aug 5 Malta
Aug 10? to Sicily
Aug 21-25 Sicily w/ family (--Are they city folks, or do you think they would prefer something different?)
Remainder in transit to Naples or Bari

Are you open to driving up the coast, or do you prefer public transit. You could break up a train trip up the west coast, but Naples and the Amalfi Coast or parts just south would be easy for filling ten days. I think to get to Bari, you'd be better off flying to Bari or Brindisi, then just tooling around Puglia before departing. Unless you are a driver and want to explore Calabria.

acraven
I'll definitely order the RS Sicily guidebook. I've used a few in the past, and they were quite helpful. We have used mass transit in France and Italy (street/cable cars, busses and trains) thus far, and found it worked well and we also used Uber on prior trips.

In 2019 I obtained an International Driving Permit which my wife and I agreed I should not use. Something about disagreements over directions at home didn't bode well.

The time my children and son-in-laws have is very abbreviated, and they will be coming in from parts of Europe that I find beautiful, but not with the historical significance of so many places in Italy. I think we'll stay with trains, preferably. I'm reading a trend in the replies to my post naming Ortygia. I will start to research that. When planning our 2019 trip, we were moving from Florence to Venice, and so many responses mentioned Bologna, that after research, we added 3 nights there with a day trip to Parma, and it was a wonderful experience. Thank you for your comments!

Well if it helps, I have threatened my husband with bodily harm over his road rage at home, but on vacation he has performed admirably, and all of our driving trips have been well worth any initial anxiety. I would not miss out on anything due to concerns that you cannot navigate together. Transport does make a big difference for suggestions for both within Sicily and as you move up the coast.

You can definitely have a good time in Sicily without a car. I spent 17 or 18 days there, carless. But when you go to smaller places (like the Baroque towns I mentioned), you'll be limited by the public-transportation schedules. I like to point out that it's not rare to find yourself with a choice between these two options on day-trips:
- A rather rushed visit at your destination with a lunch of supermarket snacks as you walk around, so you can catch a mid-day bus back to your base.
- A leisurely visit with time for a nice lunch, followed by 2 hours (or longer) to kill because there's no afternoon bus before something like 4 PM. (Not saying you'll necessarily encounter that sort of schedule; it depends on where you go and on what day of the week.)

Sicily doesn't have tons of trains, so buses are fairly often more convenient. Sometimes they're the only option. Erice and Taormina are at the top of hills, so if you arrive by train you must transfer to a bus or some sort of lift.

Robert
Thank you for your comments. We have mainly used apartments which we find to be available more in neighborhoods and with a washing machine, and also have interspersed hotels for quicker turn-arounds. We added Malta after my DNA results were updated by Ancestry.com to include Malta at 2%. 89% Sicily / Southern Italy. I've researched back and found paternal grandparents from the Abruzzo region and maternal grandparents from a village 20 miles or so outside of Palermo. So the Malta - Sicily is easy enough, it's the east coast west coast dilemma on the mainland! On the east coast, I've actually researched more around Bari than Pescara, and truth be known, I suspect my wife would prefer the Amalfi coast.

We did a day trip from Rome in 2017 to Pompeii, an amazing place, and stopped in Naples only a few hours -- enough time to share a pizza with my then single daughters, and Peroni. On a different thought, why are the brown bottled Peroni so much better tasting than the green bottled?

So, on the west coast, perhaps the train from Palermo or Messina and stop along the way at Salerno or Sorrento with a trip to Capri and some time in Naples' city center.

valadelphia

Thank you for your comments. Malta will be just my wife and I, and we will have a long travel day from New Orleans, to Dulles, to Frankfurt, then to Malta -- 17 hours or so. Crowds don't bother any of us, and I dare to say are preferred -- so city mice are we. Other than this year, we are accustomed to crowded streets for Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's day and several other crowded events.

Sicily we'll have most of the time alone, then the "kids" and spouses arrive. One from London or Paris and the other from Ireland or Salzburg (there pretty up in the air). I was hoping that for the first trip abroad for my son-in-laws they would go to one of the most historic places in the world, Rome, but alas they have their own agendas; and fittingly so. Therefore, I would like to show them the antiquities of Sicily, whether a church, a piazza, or a monument.

Malta is a great place to start off a trip after a long journey--it is bite-size so you won't feel overwhelmed, and there is a good bit of natural beauty. Highlights for us were a trip to Comiso, walking across Gozo, and the neolithic temples. Sadly, we neglected to book a visit to the Hypogeum, which had to be done in advance.
Puglia vs the Amalfi Coast/Naples is a tough choice, but the good news is they are both great, so you can't go wrong. Puglia is a bit more difficult without a car but not terribly so. I'd let the overall travel logistics make the decision--whatever maximizes your time. Good luck--Sicily will be high among my options when I travel again!

valadelphia
Thank you for your comments, and reinforcing the idea of starting in Malta. I've watched half a dozen Vlogs on YouTube and it looks amazing. I'm not sure when we'll make the final decision on Puglia vs the Amalfi Coast. It may be that vaccination will be more prevalent in the higher tourist areas, which presumably favors the Amalfi Coast; but we'll see.

First of all, for weather, I find it much more useful to see the actual daily conditions at time and date.com. Enter a city and you can see the weather for any month for the last 10 years. I would expect that part of the world to be pretty hot and humid, but maybe not quite as much as New Orleans.

It's been years since I was in Malta (caveat) but tours and even private guides were not nearly as pricy as Italy . . .or other western European countries. Driving is awful there - first of all, they drive on the "wrong side" of the road (thanks to the Brits), second there are too many cars and too few roads. On the other hand, I found it easy to drive in Sicily and a real boon to be able to visit the Greek temples and Villa Romana de Casale (stunning mosaics). Even driving in and out of Ortigia was a snap.

Chani
Thank you. I've added "Time and Date" to Holiday Weather (https://www.holiday-weather.com/sicily/averages/) so I'll have a couple of them. It will surely be hot, and we had planned for May / June but pushed it back as far as we could to allow more penetration (pardon the pun) of the vaccination in Italy.

We were in London in 2019 and it was fun being on the second level of a double-decker bus, and I truly couldn't imagine driving there, or Malta given the narrowness of the images I have seen of the Maltese streetscape.

My wife and I were first planning Malta to Sicily to Greece and home, and we changed. Then we realized the great opportunity to see Greek temples on Sicily, and we definitely want to get to Syracuse and/or Agrigento (to name a couple).

Richard, you are on the right track with Sicily. I took the RS Greece tour and the ruins I saw there - including the Acropolis - were nothing to compare with those in Sicily - Agrigento, and Selinunte (my favorite) and Segesta as well. Even though there's only one temple, it is beautiful and the theatre is worth a look as well. With a car, you could visit Segesta on the way to Selinunte. Then spend the next day at Agrigento. Segesta only needs 2 hours tops, Selinunte at least 1/2 day, and Agrigento warrants a full day with a visit to the excellent archaeological museum there. Then spend a few hours at Villa Romana on the way east to Syracuse. Of course there's much much more to Sicily than just the Greek ruins, it's very hard to pick and choose.

The remains of 3 Greek temples at Paestum (about an hour's drive/ride south of Salerno) are also beautiful, especially in the late afternoon sun through sunset and dusk when they are floodlit. There's a very good archaeological museum there as well.