I put my hotel comments in another post so this is just about the trip.
This is a fantastic trip! When I travel on my own, I don’t plan things that move at the same pace as this tour - it’s all 2 night stays and then a couple of 1 night stays. It’s definitely a bit tiring to change hotels that often but it works for 11 days and I wholly recommend this tour.
There is a cooking class, a winery tour with lunch, a lunch at a gorgeous farm, a WW2 museum, a visit to a palazzo in Palermo, and way more Roman and Greek sites than I anticipated. Everyday was full of fun - varied and interesting.
Sightseeing highlights:
The absolute highlight of this tour was the mosaics at Villa Romana Del Casale. These are 4th century mosaics that cover something like 37,000 square feet. I had done ZERO research on this place and so I just wandered in and was completely overcome. They are exquisite - tigers, flowers, geometric designs, feasts…and even women in 4th century bikinis! I would come to Sicily just to see this place!
The temples at Agrigento were also awesome. We were escorted through there by a really good guide who made life at the temples - and the life of the ordinary folk on the surrounding hillsides - come to life.
Biggest surprise:
Palermo! I loved Palermo and I know it’s the topic of much varied discussion on this site. We had 3 days on our own beforehand and so we got to see a lot.
I stayed about a mile from the tour hotel here - in the lovely Grand Hotel et des Palmes. This is a really special spot for a Palermo stay. The breakfast was the best I had on Sicily.
Palermo is full of old palazzos that have been repurposed as museums. The coolest one I did was the Palazzo Butera. It’s a combination of art museum - with oddly modern art - art deco furniture displays, and a grand house. Part way through my wanderings I came to a massive green and white tiled terrace with a nice view and I thought that was cool until I finally made it to the top terrace - with a spectacular 360 degree city view. This place is worth a visit!!!