dwdvagamundo

I think you have enough time for a pretty good look at Sicily--keeping in mind that there is never "enough" time anywhere.

Three nites Palermo is the minimum.

I would see Segesta in route to Erice and spend only one nite there.

I'd go to Ortygia, but take the day from Erice to stay either in Taormina or in Catania, from which you can easily drive up on Etna.

I mention Catania because of your interest in Baroque architecture. You've omitted the Baroque cities in southeastern Sicily, like Noto and Modica, and Catania has a good bit of Baroque architecture.

sundriedtopepo

Let me qualify my comments by saying that of course everyone has their own travel style witness bilboburgler's recent bicycle trip along the Cote d'Azur and Ligurian coast, and his one week in Sicily which he enjoyed very much.

It's great if when posting a question, posters tell us how much travel experience they have had, what they are interested in, etc, where they live, if they are travelling alone or with friends or a spouse, and we can take all those things into consideration. When advice is given here, it's often from the perspective of the traveller's own point of view, which is alright, because we can all learn from each other's experiences.

I have no quibble with the fact that people have different ways of travelling, or that some people love a place and others hate it.

Tuscanlifeedit, you give us such great information, it's easy to give you feedback on your plans, which I think is the real question here.

annhig

Just be very careful to keep luggage out of sight and any other indications that there might be something inside the car that would be of interest to thieves. (I tend to leave my maps, etc., on the front seat!). I'm driving around Sicily in September and have already been warned about this.>>

panecott, we were very worried about this too, but soon realised that our fears were pretty well unfounded. I'm not saying that it would be a good idea to leave a hire car full of luggage in Catania or Palermo, but we didn't feel that any of the other places we visited while we had luggage in the car were at all scary.

Negotiating the traffic was a lot more problematical.

PalenQ

I found Sicilians to be very helpful - once when I was looking for a bus station in Randazzo I asked a scraggly older guy and he said he'd give me a lift- when I got there I wanted to give him a 'tip' but he vehemently refused.

Before going to Siciliy I may have been aloof even to get in a car with locals - not saying not that there are pickpockets, etc but I too saw no overt signs of that and on many occasions found Sicilians very very helpful.

IMDonehere

No one ever goes to Corleone?

When we went to Sicily we had lunch with a friend's family not too far from Corleone. The people in Corleone do not like tourists coming to their town.

kja

Oh, I do hope you don’t end up choosing between Selinunte and the Villa Romana del Casale! The mosaics are extraordinary and well worthy of their status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Selinunte is also incredibly special, IMO. AFAIK, it’s one of the few places in the world where one can actually step into and around a partially standing Greek temple. (Almost all the others are roped off.) I thought the site, which is extensive, worth several hours, but you could limit yourself to a short visit to just the main temple if you were pressed for time….

As for timing in the Valley of the Temples: I spent a night in Agrigento (and roamed around the medieval part of town after dinner), visited the archeological site from about 10 until 3:30 or so; visited the museum until about 5:00, and still had time to drive to my next destination before nightfall. Of course, nightfall is earlier in April than when I was there (in May), but you could always begin exploring the ruins earlier than I did, or spend less time there.

Not to cause anyone worry, but IIRC, at least one Fodorite’s luggage was stolen from a car while sightseeing in Sicily during the last 10 years. I’m sorry I don’t recall the name or the details, but taking appropriate cautions is always important. I’ll be happy to post my personal list of precautions if you’d like.

tuscanlifeedit

kja, no, we won't chose between Selinunte and Villa Romana de Casale! I'm planning on a short-ish stop at Selinunte on the way to Agrigento.

I have no idea what my physical condition will be next April, but I do have to pace myself.

I can easily take a night off Erice but I do like medieval places. Stopping there to drop off luggage seems problematic, but maybe we could do that and drive on to Segesta.

We have sometimes had to stop with luggage in our car, of course. We're very careful to hide everything, but rental cars are easy to spot. We're careful, but things do happen. We try to park with the trunk up against a wall, or tree, or whatever, but it's not always possible.


dwdvagamundo, I may not have been clear. I'm not particularly interested in the Baroque, and hope to see some good examples of Sicilian Baroque while in Palermo, which will probably be enough for me. I'm trying to trim by choosing according to my own interests and preferences, but it's not easy.

julies

We were among the lucky ones who had three weeks. We rented a car, and I felt the precautions about never ever leaving luggage in the car were way overblown and caused us undue anxiety at times and also prevented us from making the along-the-way, quick stops we frequently make when driving.


Villa Romana del Casale was the most exceptional and astounding site of all those we visited in Sicily. Greek temples and complexes of ruins all tend to blend together in one's mind after a while. I'll admit I had to go back and refresh my memory of whether it was Selinunte or Segeste we had visited and liked a lot. But, I never would have forgotten or mistaken the villa near Piazza Armerina with its fabulous mosaics. The town itself is also interesting, and I definitely would recommend an overnight there. Selinunte is in a lovely location, and we really enjoyed our hours wandering through the ruins, but the Villa Casale is truly a one-of-a-kind sight.

While Erice was fine, we felt that one night was more than enough for us, so this is a place where I would cut a night from your plan.

I'd say our top three locales in our three week visit were Palermo, Ortygia and Piazza Amerina in no particular order.

kja

Oh, good!

While I recognize that I take a risk when leaving luggage in a car, I also hide everything and try to back up to something that will make opening the trunk difficult. And I try to park whether there are people around, not because I think they will do anything to stop a theft, but because there presence may deter one. My choice – and I think it is a very personal one – is that I’m willing to take the risk if it makes seeing a special place possible, and I did leave my luggage in my car at Segesta, Selinunte, and the Villa Romana del Casale, all without incident.

I didn’t go to Erice, but I’ve read that the drive up its hill is a bit challenging; you might want to consider that when making your decision.

If it helps you plan, I visited both Segesta and Selinunte on my way to Agrigento, though I started from Palermn, not Erice. And I explored both sites rather fully, so even with a need to pace yourself, you might be able to visit both en route to Agrigento if you focus on their highlights. Whether you visit Segesta en route to or from Erice, if you are willing to leave your luggage in the car, a single night there could, perhaps, give you the experience you seek in Erice.

No, it is NOT easy to choose what to see and what to skip in magnificent and varied Sicily, even with nearly two weeks. ;-) The bad news = difficult decisions! The good news = no bad decisions, at least IMO.

massimop

In suggesting a route from Cerda to Erice through Corleone I did advise to "skip the mafia tour" just because I think it grates on local sensibilities. There are such tours given, but in general one needs to be aware traveling in Sicily that you are often following in the footsteps of thousands of bonehead tourists who were there before you whose every interaction with local Sicilians included talking about the mafia, often making a joke of it. That is true almost anywhere you go in Sicily, not just a place with so obvious a "godfather" name as Corleone, and it's really not welcome.

I don't detect a lot of interest in going to Cerda for the artichokes, but I offered the alternate rural route to Erice as a way of avoid backtracking & to have the chance to see additional scenery and villages. Corleone was only mentioned as the logistical midpoint of the alternate route, not a reason to stop.

Boolanger

tuscanlifeedit- I found your post very refreshing and well stated. Good travels, you can't help but enjoy Sicily.

massimop- Your first reply replicates exactly my thoughts only you stated it in a much more professionally and eloquently manner. Thank you. I have often found the first reply to a poster "that is not enough time?" probably the most annoying response one can offer. Why a poster chooses 3 days or 3 months is irrelevant.

kja- >> I readily admit to being someone who has provided cautions about short visits to Sicily. If I’ve done so in a way that seems that I think one “MUST” have more time there, then I apologize sincerely and will try to be more careful in my phrasing in the future.<<

Yes, it is very annoying for you to offer your idea of illogical time constraints when the question is about what to do in a specified time. However, I wanted to thank you for your contrite and heartfelt response. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts and find them quite valuable (when time is not an issue).

annhig

<< Why a poster chooses 3 days or 3 months is irrelevant. >>

well, I am going to put the contrary point of view. IMHO there is nothing wrong with pointing out to someone that if they have only, say, 7 nights in Sicily, they will not be able to see [in any meaningful sense] Palermo, Monreal, Segunte, Agrigento, the Villa Casale, Ortigia, Taormina and the Aeolian Islands. Or that someone who is flying into Palermo and out of Catania 5 nights later is not going to have much time for the Baroque towns, and Palermo and Ortigia.

if advice has been given that it's not worth going for 3/4/7 nights, I suspect that it's in that context i.e. that you can't squeeze a quart into a pint pot and that the time available might be better spent elsewhere and a separate visit made to Sicily at a different time. That is very different to the situation of the OP who has done her research and has already worked out what she may be able to see in the time available.

The ultimate choice of course is down to those who make the enquiries on a public board - they are free to accept or reject any advice that they get here or elsewhere.

Boolanger

annhig

Of course people are free to accept or reject any advice. My point is when someone asks, "I am going to Sicily and will be staying for 3 days. I really want to see Mt. Etna but wondered what else you would recommend while in Sicily?" If you answer "You can't see Sicily in 3 days" you are doing the poster and other readers a disservice.

For demonstration purposes, lets suppose grandma is given 2 months to live but always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower before she died. She inquires what else you would see in Paris if for only 2 days. Replying you must spend more than 2 days in Paris not only does not answer the question but is annoying and perhaps rude(assuming grandma doesn't want to share she is dying).

I understand that when you are familiar with a place or area, you want others to share in the joy and experience you have had. The fact you are giving advice on this forum speaks to your desire to share and be helpful. However, I never found it helpful for someone to respond by questioning the time I have allotted to an area unless I mentioned flexibility in that time.

Respectfully

kja

To each his or her own, and again, I will try to be more sensitive, but FWIW, when I am planning a trip, I hope people will tell me if they think I am not giving a particular area sufficient time. And IME, people who have little experience or who have done little research (or who have consulted only sources that provide cursory coverage) may not be aware of all of their options, or might not consider the disadvantages of going guickly from place to place. Confident that people know they can ignore my advice, I would feel that I had done a <U>dis</U>service by failing to note otherwise unacknowledged limitations imposed by the timing of a proposed trip. JMO.

I’m glad that people travel in different ways and for different reasons, and I’m also glad that Fodorites differ in what advice they choose to offer. Vive la différence! (And I wish more people make the assumption, as Boolanger does, that the desire is to share and be helpful.)

annhig

well, Boolanger, you may have come across more informative OPs than I have but generally, it takes several goes before we find out about Granny's sad state of health or whatever else is causing them to curtail their trip. Nor, frankly, do I remember anyone saying that they only have 3 days and asking for advice about what else they could see, other than Etna. The normal enquiry is more along the lines of this one:

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...n-7-8-days.cfm

There are of course many ways to respond to someone who may think that they can see "Rome, Venice, Florence, Tuscany country side, Cinque Terra" in 7-8 days and I concede that it's not entirely clear if they are envisaging seeing all of those places or just some of them. so it will take a while tactfully to tease out of them what they are really interested in and what they can jettison. But simply to say "fly into Venice, stay two nights, then get the train to Florence, stay 3 nights and do two day trips, then train to Rome and finish your stay" would hardly be doing them any favours, would it?

massimop

In fairness to what started this thread, it has frequently been the case on this forum that any mention of visiting Sicily for a few days triggers a set speech of discouragement, with more than one poster telling people to skip visiting Siciliy entirely unless one can give it more time. This set speech is recited indpendent of whether the person planning the trip has mentioned a single thing about how many destinations within Sicily they have in mind. The response from Fodor's is "wrong, don't go there unless you are prepared to complete a respectable tourist itinerary, and that takes 2 or 3 weeks."

As the OP here pointed out, no one automatically says that to people planning to swing through regions of the UK outside of London for 4 to 8 days as part of trip to the UK. No one says that to people including a swing through Portugal as part of a trip to Spain. Only Sicily is treated like it can't be appreciated in small bites.

annhig

The response from Fodor's is "wrong, don't go there unless you are prepared to complete a respectable tourist itinerary, and that takes 2 or 3 weeks.">>

every time, massimop? I don't remember being told that when I asked for advice on the 10 day trip we did last year. I did make it clear that we were only planning on seeing the east of the island and no-one batted a hair.

Frankly, I think you doth protest too much.

annhig

oh, and BTW, I have occasionally discouraged people from travelling long distances just for the sake of a few days, in places besides Sicily, including those who have proposed coming to Cornwall.

In fact, depending on their other plans, I might well suggest to the OP in the other thread to which I have linked that they stick to France.

massimop

The first post was NOT written by me. It raised a quite valid issue regarding advice given on Fodor's about Sicily. If you don't see that at this point, nothing will make you see it. The repeated insistence on Fodor's of "that didn't happen to me" as the final word on what goes on for other people deserves its own thread.

yestravel

I think 2 weeks in Sicily is just fine. We did our first trip there for about that amount of time. I knew I wanted to come back and we did for close to 3 weeks. But we all must do with whatever time we have and I believe any trip can be tailored to most timeframes.

We left luggage in our car for sure on our second trip. Don't recall on our first trip. We did as described in terms of trying to put everything out of site, parking where there were other people and backing up to a wall. So far so good...nothing ever taken or attempted break in.

We liked Erice although on the second trip it was quite crowded in the day, but deserted in the evenings and early morning. Be aware that the rocks that make up the walkways get very slippery. So much so that on this last trip I commented I would not like to walk on them if they were wet. Dry ones were bad enough. I've never been sure what the big deal is about the drive up to Erice. It's a beautiful drive up a mountain that is generally free of lots of traffic. You could visit Segesta on the way to Erice if you choose.

I was not wowed by Cefalu - the cathedral is worth seeing but we found the town to be jampacked with a lot of traffic.

As others have stated Taormina has beautiful views. Stayed there the first trip and I wanted to see the views again the second trip. So we stayed in the countryside and went in town for 1 day. Easy parking on the outskirts of town. However the town was very crowded with tour groups and I had a quick look around and got out of there. If you are choosing between Ortygia and Taormina I would go with Ortygia as the town is far less crowded and quite charming.

Agree not to miss Villa Romana del Casale. It was as amazing the second time around as the first. We went first thing in the morning and it was not crowded. We were there in May.

Lovely scenery driving in Sicily. For the most part roads were fairly empty. We had one awful detour thru the mountains that had tons of traffic with lots of big trucks. Other than that it was smooth going.
Have a great trip!