dutyfree

Help! I am changing my trip around that we leave on this week to Sicily and need some last minute assistance.( My daughter and I are going to Ortigia, Sicily to check out a college that she is interested in attending next spring for a college abroad program.) I have 7 nights booked for a hotel based in Ortigia off Syracuse and had planned on renting a car. The car people have offered the cheapest deal with all the insurance and being an automatic at over 750 Euros for the week which is too high for me.Do you think that since we got a good price on a hotel in Ortigia that we should just stay there the whole time and use it as our base for the whole week? I am planning on using public transportation for everything on the east coast area. My questions to my Fodor's friends are: besides Noto and possibly Ragusa,what other side trips would you do? I had wanted to do the Mt.Etna train ride and/or jeep tour too.(We love history, eating/shopping and just enjoying the countryside.)Is this too much traveling on the train and or bus with backtracking to do Mt. Etna and possibly Taormina in a day? Would we be best served to move up to Catania for a few days and use that as our base. We plan on leaving on a very early flight from Catania to Rome the following weekend and wondered if it was doable going from Syracuse?(Thanks for the bus website,Eloise!) Our trip is a very broad overview as she is planning on being there next year for a semester and her father and I will probably rent a car then and tour around for ourselves.For some reason, I am just freezing up on this trip for planning due to having to rely on public transportation. Thanks for any imput!

dutyfree

Anyone?

bobthenavigator

I am not sure what to say. The car decision is yours and effects all of your options. I would fly into Catania, go to Taormina for 3 nites, then get a car and do the Sircusa and Ragusa area with a car. Caltigirone and Romana Casale are certainly worth your time from there. We will be doing 16 days in Sicily in late April and our first 6 days are as I described above.

AP6380

I thought I suggested this to you on another thread, but maybe it was someone else. Book a car through http://www.rent.it

I typed in an automatic car group A, 3/16-3/23 with all the extra insurance an dthe price is 307 Euros (pick-up and dropoff in Siracusa)

I used this company for Sardinia last summer and had no problems, and they were the cheapest by far.

dutyfree

Thanks for the help. I checked out the site for the RENT.IT-fabulous! I am a little gun shy about using a rental agency that is generic.(Although my last trip to Normandy was horrible using Hertz-5 cars in 4 days as they all had problems.)Do you think that I should go a little bigger or that that little Citreon is safe enough for two?You suggested renting from Siracusa-less hassle than in and out of Catania airport?

AP6380

I never drive in/out of Catania, but it's probably no more hassle than driving in Siracusa. I used this co. not knowing ANYTHING about it, and it was fine. Make sure you add the Super Kasko & Furto coverage so you have all the insurance you need. I'm not going to lie, driving in Ortygia was challenging, make sure you get good directions to your hotel there. We didn't have directions and just kept driving until we found it! My biggest tip for driving anywhere is just relax and drive how you normally would, those fast Italian drivers will just work around you. I consider myself broken in after driving for 3 weeks last summer, and I picked up a car at the Naples airport & drove out of there!