My husband and I will be traveling to Sicily for the first time in mid April for 7 days.......we want to avoid the big cities and would like to stay in an area for a few nights to avoid constant packing and unpacking.....any suggestions for a nice town outside of palermo from which we can take day trips to Cefalu, Erice, etc? Same question for the Argigento area, the Siracus area......thanks!

We are planning a trip to Sicily in 2013 (I know, I like to plan ahead haha) and are looking at staying in San Vito lo Capo
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotels-...ly-Hotels.html

For Agrigento we are looking at this place: http://www.traifrutti.it/

And in Siracus: http://www.laviadellagiudecca.it/index.en.php

Here is the link to my 2005t trip report.
Start on day 3. It lists everywhere we wents snad stayed. We circled the whole Island. Loved every minute.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...rip-report.cfm

Sicily does not lend itself to the hub-and-spoke style of travel. Most of the sights are on the perimeter, the coasts. With only 7 days I'd pick either the east coast or the west coast. Will you have a car?

jamikins,

Thanks for the link to La Via della Guiadecca. Looks great!

Circled the island in 2005, stayed in Palermo, Agrigento, Syracusa, Erice, it was an amazing trip. Agree with Mimar that hub and spoke does not really work well, due to mountainous terrain in parts, and traffic in the cities. So while the packing/unpacking is not ideal, it is nice to have a bottle of wine with dinner in a place like Erice and not have to worry about driving off a cliff on the way home.

Agree with the others that Sicily does not lend itself to "hub and spoke" touring. However, I can highly recommend Palazzo del Sale in Siracusa (on Ortigia). In Modica we loved Casa Talia. Either town would work as bases for more local day trips. For example, we visited Piazza Armerina from Modica, an easy drive. We were there this past March.

Enjoy Sicily--it's fantastic!

http://www.palazzodelsale.com/

http://www.casatalia.it/

Great suggestions all around.....thank you all so much - the more we discuss, the more we are thinking we will need to move more frequently and also stick to the coast - which is all ok.....we will start in Siracusa, drive up to taromina, then to cefalu and then the area outside Plaermo - still struggling though to find a good place outside of palermo that can be a quick hop to the airport since we have a very early flight back to Rome....

You might want to take a look at my trip report; click on my name to find it. We stayed in an agriturismo 20 minutes outside Siracusa and in another one near Piazza Armerina.