Sicily: Palermo, the Valley of the Temples, Etna and Taormina

1. Day 1: Arrive in Palermo

   Palermo Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO) to your hotel in central Palermo

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Welcome dinner
   • Stay in Palermo
   Day 1 details

   Fly into Palermo's Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO), about 35 km west of the city on the coast, in time for the early-evening briefing: plan to land by about 4 pm (the latest arrival time is confirmed with your final itinerary). A driver meets you in the arrivals hall for the drive of about 40 minutes along the coast and past the bulk of Monte Pellegrino into the old centre. Our hotel is central, within walking distance of the Quattro Canti crossroads, so the city is on the doorstep. If you land early, walk Via Maqueda to Piazza Pretoria and its marble fountain, or sit with a coffee and a cannolo and watch the evening passeggiata begin. At about 6 pm your See Sight Tours guide meets the group for a short briefing on the days ahead: the pace, the few early starts and what to wear on Etna. Then we walk to dinner together, a welcome meal of Sicilian dishes at a local trattoria.

   Included

   • Pick-up at Palermo Falcone Borsellino Airport (PMO)
   • Welcome briefing with your guide
   • Welcome dinner

   Free time: Free until the evening briefing

2. Day 2: Monreale at opening, Palermo by street food

   Palermo to Monreale and back, then the Ballaro market and the Norman Palace

   • Drive about 45 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Palermo
   Day 2 details

   We drive the few kilometres up to Monreale for opening, ahead of the tour coaches, because its cathedral is the high point of Arab-Norman Sicily and is best seen quietly. Begun in 1174 under King William II, its walls carry thousands of square metres of gold-ground mosaic, with Christ Pantocrator filling the apse; the cloister beside it has more than two hundred paired columns, no two pairs carved alike. Back in Palermo a local guide leads a street-food walk through the Ballaro market: panelle (chickpea fritters), arancine, sfincione and whatever is in season, eaten standing up as Palermitans do, and enough of it to count as lunch. On the way we pass Quattro Canti, Piazza Pretoria and the cathedral. Mid-afternoon we visit the Palazzo dei Normanni and its Cappella Palatina, where Byzantine mosaics sit under a carved Islamic wooden ceiling; with Monreale they belong to a UNESCO World Heritage site listed in 2015. The evening is free: the steps of the Teatro Massimo, an aperitivo, or dinner wherever you like.

   Included

   • Monreale Cathedral and its cloister at opening, with a licensed local guide
   • Street-food walk through the Ballaro market with a local guide (lunch)
   • Quattro Canti, Piazza Pretoria and Palermo Cathedral on foot
   • The Palazzo dei Normanni and the Cappella Palatina

   Optional experiences

   • Guided visit inside the Teatro Massimo (extra, price shown at booking)
   • The Capuchin Catacombs (extra, price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Skip the cloister and rest in the square at Monreale, and go back to the hotel by van between the market and the palace.

   More active option: Climb to the cathedral roof terraces at Monreale for the view over the Conca d'Oro, when they are open.

   Free time: Evening free in Palermo

   Activity: About 3 to 4 hours on foot, on market streets and stone floors. Shoulders and knees covered in the churches.

   

3. Day 3: A cooking lesson, then south to Agrigento

   Palermo to Agrigento

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Agrigento
   Day 3 details

   A slower morning. We walk to the Capo market with a local cook to buy whatever is good that day, then cook it together in a kitchen in the old town: typically caponata, pasta con le sarde with wild fennel and sardines, and cannoli filled to order, with the story behind each dish and its Arab, Spanish or Norman roots. We eat what we make for lunch. Early in the afternoon we leave Palermo and drive about two hours south across the island's interior, through rolling wheat country that is green in spring and gold by June, to Agrigento on its ridge above the sea. We check in by about 5 pm. The rest of the day is free: walk Via Atenea, the main street of the old town, and after dark look down from the terraces at the edge of town to the temples, floodlit in the valley below. Get to bed early if you can, because tomorrow we are at the temples when the gates open.

   Included

   • Shopping the Capo market with a local cook
   • Hands-on Sicilian cooking lesson in Palermo, with lunch
   • Drive across the interior to Agrigento

   Easier option: Watch the cooking rather than taking a station; the lunch is the same.

   Free time: Late afternoon and evening free in Agrigento

   Activity: An easy day: about 1 hour on foot in the market and the rest standing at the stove or in the van.

   

4. Day 4: The Valley of the Temples at opening, then Ragusa

   Agrigento to the Valley of the Temples, then along the south coast to Ragusa

   • Drive about 2.5 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ragusa
   Day 4 details

   We are at the gate of the Valley of the Temples when it opens at 8:30, with a licensed local guide, while the stone is cool and the paths are still quiet. The park is the UNESCO-listed Archaeological Area of Agrigento, the site of the Greek city of Akragas, and we walk it along the ridge: the Temple of Juno (Hera) at the eastern end, then the Temple of Concordia, built around 440 to 430 BC and one of the most complete Doric temples standing, then the columns of the Temple of Hercules and the fallen blocks and stone giant of the Temple of Olympian Zeus. By late morning the heat and the coaches build, and we leave. Lunch is sit-down at a country restaurant on the way east. Then about two and a half hours along the south coast and up onto the limestone plateau of the Hyblaean hills to Ragusa, our base for two nights. In the late afternoon we walk down into Ragusa Ibla with our guide as the light turns the stone gold: the Duomo di San Giorgio, the lanes behind it and the Giardino Ibleo at the far end.

   Included

   • The Valley of the Temples at 8:30 opening, with a licensed local guide and entry
   • Sit-down lunch at a country restaurant on the way
   • Guided walk in Ragusa Ibla: the Duomo di San Giorgio and the Giardino Ibleo

   Optional experiences

   • The Kolymbethra Garden, a walled citrus garden in the valley (extra, price shown at booking). It opens at 10:00 and needs the Valley ticket, so it is only possible if the group agrees to stay later and reach Ragusa later.

   Easier option: Walk only the central stretch from the Temple of Concordia to the Temple of Juno and meet the van at the eastern gate.

   More active option: Walk the stepped lanes from Ragusa's upper town down to Ibla, about 300 steps, instead of riding.

   Free time: Evening free in Ragusa

   Activity: About 3 km on gravel and stone paths in the valley with little shade: bring a hat and water.

5. Day 5: Modica chocolate and a cheese-farm lunch

   Ragusa to Modica, then a farm in the Ragusa countryside and back to Ragusa

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Ragusa
   Day 5 details

   Modica is about half an hour away, built down both sides of a gorge and rebuilt, like Ragusa, after the earthquake of 1693; the two belong to the eight Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto, listed by UNESCO in 2002. We start at the church of San Giorgio, its tall facade at the top of a long staircase, then visit a working chocolate maker. Modica chocolate is ground cold, so the sugar never melts and the bar stays grainy: you taste it plain, with chilli and with citrus, and hear why it has its own protected status. Late in the morning we drive out between dry-stone walls and carob trees to a family farm where Ragusano cheese is still made by hand. Watch the curd being stretched and shaped, taste ricotta while it is warm, then sit down to a long farm lunch of the farm's own produce. We are back in Ragusa by mid-afternoon, and the rest of the day is yours: a rest, the steps down to Ibla, or an early aperitivo in the square below the Duomo.

   Included

   • Modica old town and the church of San Giorgio with your guide
   • Chocolate tasting at a Modica chocolate maker
   • Cheese-making visit and lunch at a farm near Ragusa

   Easier option: Skip the San Giorgio staircase: the van drops you at the top of the old town.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free in Ragusa

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in Modica, with steep streets and steps.

6. Day 6: Baroque Noto, then Ortigia

   Ragusa to Noto, then Syracuse (Ortigia)

   • Drive about 2 h
   • Breakfast
   • Stay in Syracuse
   Day 6 details

   An hour east through the Hyblaean hills to Noto, laid out new on a gentler slope after the 1693 earthquake destroyed the old town further up the valley. By mid-morning the pale local limestone glows. A local guide walks us along the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, past the Cathedral of San Nicolo, whose dome collapsed in 1996 and was rebuilt and reopened in 2007, and up Via Corrado Nicolaci, where the balconies of Palazzo Nicolaci rest on carved horses, lions, sirens and cherubs. Then a granita, almond or lemon, with a warm brioche, which is breakfast for many Sicilians. Lunch is your choice in Noto. In the early afternoon we drive forty minutes on to Syracuse and over the bridge onto Ortigia, the island old town, where we stay two nights in a hotel inside the old centre. The late afternoon and evening are free: walk the promenade on the island's western side as the sun drops over the Great Harbour, and find a table in one of the lanes for dinner.

   Included

   • Guided walk in Noto: Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the Cathedral of San Nicolo and the Palazzo Nicolaci balconies
   • Granita and brioche in Noto

   Free time: Lunch, late afternoon and evening free

   Activity: About 2 hours on foot in Noto, with broad stairs between the terraces of the town.

   

7. Day 7: Syracuse: the Greek theatre early, Ortigia by day

   Ortigia to the Neapolis Archaeological Park and back, then Ortigia on foot

   • Drive about 15 min
   • Breakfast and lunch
   • Stay in Syracuse
   Day 7 details

   We are at the Neapolis Archaeological Park when it opens, a short drive from Ortigia, because the great Greek theatre faces the sun and has no shade by mid-morning. Cut into the hillside in the 5th century BC and enlarged later, it still stages classical plays in late spring and early summer. Next to it, in the old limestone quarries, is the Ear of Dionysius, a cave about 23 m high whose echo carries a whisper, and then the Roman amphitheatre. Back on Ortigia a local guide walks us through the morning market for a tasting lunch of olives, cheeses, fish and bread from the stalls, then on to the Temple of Apollo, the Fountain of Arethusa with its papyrus plants, and Piazza Duomo. There the cathedral is the Greek Temple of Athena under a baroque front: its Doric columns still stand in the walls. Syracuse is part of a UNESCO site listed in 2005. The afternoon is free: take the optional boat around the island and into the sea caves, swim in summer, or simply rest.

   Included

   • Neapolis Archaeological Park at opening with a licensed local guide: the Greek theatre, the Ear of Dionysius and the Roman amphitheatre
   • Ortigia market walk with a tasting lunch (on a Sunday, lunch at a trattoria instead)
   • The Temple of Apollo, the Fountain of Arethusa and Syracuse Cathedral

   Optional experiences

   • Boat trip around Ortigia and into the sea caves (extra, price shown at booking)
   • The Paolo Orsi Archaeological Museum (extra, price shown at booking)

   Easier option: Skip the amphitheatre and wait in the shade at the park entrance.

   More active option: Walk the full circuit of Ortigia's sea walls in the late afternoon, about 4 km.

   Free time: Afternoon and evening free on Ortigia

   Activity: About 3 to 4 hours on foot in the morning, partly in full sun at Neapolis.

   

8. Day 8: Mount Etna, then Taormina

   Syracuse to Rifugio Sapienza on Mount Etna, the upper station and an Etna winery, then Taormina

   • Drive about 3 h
   • Breakfast, lunch and dinner
   • Stay in Taormina
   Day 8 details

   We leave Ortigia at 8 am, because cloud tends to build on Etna by early afternoon. About an hour and a half north, the road climbs through old lava flows and pine to Rifugio Sapienza on the south side, at about 1,900 m. A cable car lifts us to about 2,500 m, and off-road vehicles carry us on to about 2,900 m, where an authorised volcano guide walks us among recent craters and warm, steaming ground. How close we go to the summit area depends on the day's volcanic activity and the official access rules. Etna rises to about 3,300 m, a height that changes with its eruptions, and was listed by UNESCO in 2013. If wind shuts the cable car, we walk the rims of the Silvestri craters near the refuge instead. Lunch is at a winery on the volcano's slopes, with a tasting of Etna wines grown in black volcanic soil. Then about an hour to Taormina, about three hours of driving in all, arriving by about 5 pm, and a farewell dinner together in the evening.

   Included

   • Cable car from Rifugio Sapienza to about 2,500 m
   • Off-road vehicles to about 2,900 m and a walk with an authorised volcano guide
   • The Silvestri craters
   • Lunch and wine tasting at an Etna winery
   • Farewell dinner in Taormina

   Easier option: Stay at about 1,900 m: walk the rim of the Silvestri craters near the refuge, then wait in the refuge cafe while the group goes up.

   More active option: With the volcano guide's agreement, walk down the last stretch from about 2,900 m to the upper cable car station instead of riding.

   Free time: Free time in Taormina before the farewell dinner

   Activity: At about 2,900 m it can be near freezing and windy even in June: bring a warm layer, a windproof jacket, long trousers and closed shoes with grip. The thin air makes walking slower.

   

9. Day 9: Taormina's Greek theatre, and home

   Taormina to Catania Fontanarossa Airport (CTA)

   • Drive about 1 h
   • Breakfast
   Day 9 details

   The Greek theatre opens at 9 am and we are there at opening, before the day visitors arrive from the cruise ships and coaches. Built by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC and rebuilt by the Romans, it is set into the hill so that the broken stage wall frames the coast and, on a clear morning, Etna, where you stood yesterday. A local guide explains how it worked and how it is still used for summer concerts and festivals. Afterwards walk the Corso Umberto past Piazza Duomo and its fountain to the terrace of Piazza IX Aprile, with its view down the coast, then back to the hotel to collect your bags. At about 11:30 we drive an hour south to Catania Fontanarossa Airport (CTA), with Etna on the right most of the way. Your guide sees you to the terminal and checks your flight before saying goodbye. Book a flight leaving after about 2:30 pm. If you would rather stay on in Taormina or Catania, we can book extra nights.

   Included

   • Taormina's Greek theatre at opening, with a licensed local guide
   • Drop-off at Catania Fontanarossa Airport (CTA)

   Easier option: If your flight leaves before about 2:30 pm, we arrange an earlier transfer from the hotel.

   Free time: Late morning free in Taormina

   Activity: Book a flight leaving after about 2:30 pm.

   

Wildlife and weather: Spring brings wildflowers and green wheat fields, with days of about 18 to 26 C; September and October stay warm and the sea is at its warmest. July and August often pass 35 C inland, so we do not run then. Etna's upper slopes are cold and windy in every month and can hold snow into May.

• Palermo2 nights
• Agrigento1 night
• Ragusa2 nights
• Syracuse2 nights
• Taormina1 night