Easter in Sicily
 

Hello everyone - we are travelling to Sicily in March and were originally going to fly into Catania on Easter Sunday. Due to a change in our flights, we are now coming into Palermo at 11.00am on Good Friday. We will now hopefully be able to see some of the fabled Sicilian Easter festivities. The guidebooks have mentioned places such as Enna, Trapani, Prizzi and Piana Degli Albanesi,and I was wondering whether any Fodorites had specific recommendations or experiences.

We'll be picking up a hire car in Palermo, so should in theory be able to get to anywhere in the vicinity of Palermo by shortly after lunchtime, and then anywhere on the island by Sunday. As we have a hotel booked from Sunday night onwards in the vicinity of Syracusa, we would be inclined to head across the island in that direction on Saturday and Sunday.

Any suggestions would be very gratefully received

Many thanks

Alan

TTT - anybody have any thoughts?

Ta

Alan

I've never been to Sicily during Holy Week, but I do recall from what I read that the celebration in Trapani sounded wonderful. From Palermo, Trapani would be the closest of the places you mentioned. It's not much more than 1.5 hours from the airport.

I've never been in Sicily during Holy Week or Easter, but a few years ago, I was thinking of going then. I had also read about the traditional celebrations in all the towns you mentioned (except Prizzi). You might be interested in this book: No Pictures in My Grave by Susan Caperna Lloyd. It's not a great book, and the author's personality comes through as a little irritating, but she traveled around Sicily especially to learn about the ancient traditions that mix pagan and Christian elements, and she describes Holy Week rituals in several cities and towns.

This thread has links to some sites that might interest you. http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=34387691 I think there have been other threads about Easter in Sicily.

I know this isn't strictly answering your question, but have you been to Palermo before ? If not, I'd recommend spending what time you have before leaving again on Sunday *just* sightseeing in Palermo. We spent a week there and loved it, but still didn't feel we'd seen everything - we didn't even get to Monreale. I I were you, I wouldn't bother picking up the hire car until you leave Palermo - as with most cities, a car is more of a liability than a help.

Thanks for your suggestions,folks. Caroline - we do have a few days planned for Palermo later in our holiday, it is the change in our schedule that has now allowed us to spend Easter there.

I would be interested to know if anyone knows about celebrations in Lipari. We are also going to be in Sicily for the Easter weekend.

Adelle: If you look at the old thread that I linked to above, you'll find a post (by me) listing the urls of various sites with info about Easter in Sicily. I haven't looked at them in a long time, but maybe there will be something in there about Easter in Lipari. I think there will be something pretty interesting (to foreigners like us) going on the week before Easter ANYwhere in Sicily, but the particular cities and towns mentioned by MagicRat above are the ones that are known to have particularly rich and well preserved folk customs during Holy Week.

Thanks cmt,
I did go to the links that were in that thread, but they were in Italian and I did not see a link to a translated version. I have no Italian to speak of or read with, so it was not much help.