I am visiting Sicily this summer and wondered if anyone has travel tips. We will be spending about 10 days there.

I took a week in Sicily last year before making my way up to Milan, and it was terrific!

To sum up -- Sicily has all the spectacular sights and places of the north, without the crowds, with lower prices, and friendlier people too.

I would suggest traveling by train, unless you really want to drive somewhere in particular or have lots of kids to keep happy. In general, 2nd class tickets will be sufficiently comfortable for short journeys (and because in Sicily, the trains aren't state of the art anyway). For the route from Palermo to Messina or back, you may want to spluge for 1st class (air conditioning).

When I was there, visited Syracusa (impressive ruins, great scenery especially along the harbor front), Giardini/Taormina (Greek theater, nightlife in Giardini), Palermo, west from Palermo to the Egadi Islands, Levanzo (island, really charming, small town, beautiful water, warm dry breezes from Africa), Erice (mountaintop village with amazing views, quiet streets, castle), and then went north to the rest of Italy.

After visiting Sicily, I found the Amalfi coast a waste of time (kind of), with too many tourists, inflated prices, and the same things to see. I didn't really venture to the interior of Sicily, but I might have if I had had more time.

Where are you flying into? I'll try to post more here for you if I start to remember more details (prices, specific recommendations, etc.)

We are flying through Rome to Catania. Very interesting info, I'd love to hear more!

Sure, I'd be glad to continue:

I chose to travel last year in late June/early July, and despite it being
a little bit warm, this was a great time to go. Actually, it seems like
almost any time is good to be in Sicily -- aside from late July or August
when it must be positively scorching. The island gets a lot of warm, but
refreshingly dry air from Africa, and it's not a terribly uncomfortable
heat. Bring hats...

I also landed in Catania -- courtesy Lufthansa, which has a very nice
service from Munich a few times a week. The airport there is amazing, and
you should let it become part of your whole experience right away. It's
definitely not amazing in the technologically advanced sense, but amazing
in the sense of overflowing with activity, people, and above all, chaos.
This was the best part about flying in to Sicily from Northern Europe.
One minute, you're on an cold, efficient, air-conditioned jet, and the
next minute you step out onto the hot jetway, into the terminal where you
get to dive right into Sicilian culture. As you walk out of the customs
area, you'll see extended families who've come to greet their relatives,
making noise and gesturing (this is what Sicily is all about!), hordes of
children running around, workmen jackhammering up the floor as they do
renovations in the middle of the day -- in short, the place yells out
"alive".

Change some money at the small airport bank for your first out of pocket
expenses. They have ok rates, but what I would recommend in general is
that you use your ATM card to get Italian currency -- they DO have ATMs,
and you get good exchange rates. Unless you're in the heart of Sicily in
some podunk town, there's an ATM nearby. Remember this is Sicily, so you
can find out, as I did, that the bus ticket booth isn't open after lunch
until something like 2pm. Buses in Sicily (and Italy in general) are not
like here -- you have to buy your ticket before you get on, and then punch
it in the little box. So the ticket vendor is on his lunch break, yet the
buses keep on running! If your flight arrives around lunch time and you
decide to take the bus into Catania, you'll have to wait until the guy
comes back...

What I did was to use this time to call and find a hotel. I decided to
take the train down to Siracusa for the first night, and because this was
a last minute decision, I hadn't booked any place to stay -- but this is
generally not a problem. Finding rooms in Sicily is not a big challenge,
aside from in Palermo perhaps. In general, though, I found that calling
one day ahead is enough time to have a good choice of places to stay. My
guidebook for the trip was Let's Go, which was probably as acceptable as
most of the others -- it served to anchor my prices to a reasonable level,
and covered the main routes and sights well.

So anyway, I got into Catania after an hour or so, and I was surprised
during the short bus ride how modern everything is -- relative to what I
had expected. I thought I would be landing in some charming rural cliche,
but make no mistake, Catania is an industrial town. While most of Sicily
is agricultural, Catania certainly is not. I didn't stay long in Catania
-- went right to the train station, ATM, and bought my ticket to Siracusa.
The train stations all over the island can be pretty spectacular in
themselves. Since the trains run along the coast, even at the stations
you can get amazing views of the deep blue Mediterranean water.

I stayed in Siracusa one night, and immediately became socialized into the
nightly routine of walking around the square/waterfront/parks after
dinner. A reminder -- dinner in Italy is taken much later than here or
northern Europe, and I got used to it qu ickly. The meal goes more
leisurely, and afterwards you join in with everyone strolling around town.
I don't know what kind of zoning rules they have in Italy, but I found
that every block is a self-contained unit with shops and residential
apartments a nd restaurants, which produces communities where people stay
up late and actually talk to one another after dark -- very unlike
suburbian America, where everyone just goes (or drives) home.

Don't pay attention to the stories you hear about mafiosi, etc. I found
the Sicilians to be exceptionally friendly and sociable. I should tell
you that I don't look anything like a Sicilian, and I found people talking
to me like an old friend. The key may have been learning some passable
Italian, so that I could communicate back at least -- this helped a great
deal. At one point, after telling a Sicilian grandmother type that I had
grown up in New York, she gave me a tour of her entire neighborhood, t
elling me about all her relatives on Long Island the whole time. What a
great place to be.

So, I spent a night and a day in Siracusa, where the main touristy
attraction are the Greek ruins. I almost left without seeing them, and
it's a good thing that I didn't. The Greeks certainly knew how to choose
where to build cities, temples, and amphit heaters, because they generally
overlook spectacular views and have great natural beauty. I won't go on
about the ruins here -- you can read about them in a guidebook, but be
sure to see them.

Will continue with more as time allows...

Astro this is terrific and incredbily helpful information! Thanks!!

Well, after Siracusa, it was up to Taormina/Giardini-Naxos. This is a split-personality town. Turn left when you step out of the train station, and it's Giardini-Naxos, the touristy resort community, turn right and it's Taormina, a historic Greek site with more upscale surroundings. It is possible to walk to the center of Giardinia although there is bus service -- it's about a 10-15 minute walk in a straight line to the left of the train station. To get to Taormina, on the other hand, you'd be crazy to walk -- just look up the cliff to the distant houses, and that's where you need to go on the bus.

Giardini-Naxos seemed like the Sicilian equivalent of the Jersey shore, Ocean City, Daytona Beach, or whatever beach town you're familiar with, but in a good way. I think this is a popular place for German tourists, but even with all the people, it was worth going to. You can amuse yourself walking along the beachfront (the Lido) and browsing all the gaudy trinkets for sale.

Be sure to go to Taormina the next day however, and visit yet another Greek ruin -- but this one is really spectacular. It's an amphitheater set on a steep hill/mountain overlooking the sea, and the blue is a blue I'd never seen before. I spent an hour there (under a shady tree) just looking out and soaking in the warm breeze.

There's not that much more on the east coast of Sicily I think, so after that I left to go in the direction of Palermo. I thought that I would go to the Aeolian Islands (north side of Sicily, volcanoes, hot springs, etc.) but I'd heard about the Egadi Islands on the very western side of Sicily that were probably equally as interesting. Plus, this was the one time I couldn't find a place to stay in time to make that side trip an option. So at this point, I validated my Italian rail pass (15 days, 1st class) and took the train to Palermo, then a rickety two car commuter all the way to Trapani on the west end of Sicily.

A word about the rail pass -- since I was going to be traveling for 3 weeks in Italy (1 week Sicily, 2 weeks north), it was completely worth it to buy this moderately priced pass. The freedom of hopping on any train without having to stand in line for tickets or reservations was really great. I'm sure it took a great deal of worry away from my trip, and at several points on my trip, I would just look up at the train departures board, and decide where I might go that day. For a trip in Sicily alone, however, it may not be such a good deal, since distances are short, ticket prices relatively low, and a large fraction of the trains are not completely modern.

I stayed two nights in Trapani, which happens to be a jumping-off point for travelers to Tunisia. On the first day after I got there, I took a ferry to this tiny island called Levanzo. (Note that both Levanzo and Trapani are pronounced with emphasis on the first syllable -- LE'vanzo and TRA'pani, likewise the island of CA'pri.) If I had had more time, I think that I would have stayed here for a few days. There's really nothing to do on this island except socialize with the locals -- I think the total population must be not more than 500 people, but spending time like that in a place that is warm and easy-going seems like paradise in the eyes of this city dweller. Approaching the island, we passed through blue water that was again a color I'd never seen before, and stepping off the ferry, I wondered to myself whether a place like this had phone service (they did, two payphones, one of which was out of order).

I walked around a bit, had lunch, ventured down the main road (they only have one) until it looked like it would be much farther until anything else interesting, and then arranged to hop on the hoverferry back. There are a couple of cafes on the island, and I availed myself of the incredible ice cream that you find in Italy. A brief repetition on this point -- the ice cream in Italy is incredible. Like nothing back here in the prepackaged, flash frozen United States.


Back in Trapani that afternoon, I took the small bus to the neighboring town of Erice -- which sits atop a huge seaside mountain. Like almost all towns in Sicily, this one has classical era roots, and there's a great sense of history about it. The bus ride to the top is in itself a great experience, with hairpin turns and amazing views.

In general, throughout my trip in Sicily, (except for Giardini) I had the feeling that I was the only tourist for miles. Especially in Erice and Trapani, but surprisingly also in Palermo -- I never felt that the place was overrun with tourists. You know, the way it
feels in Vatican City, or the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, or Venice. I avoided cities purposely on my trip, and Sicily was the perfect example of what non-touristy Italy can be like.

So anyway, Erice provided great views of the Sicilian landscape, which I have to say can be summarized in one color -- yellow. While the north has lots of greenery, my image of Sicily is generally golden brown or yellow fields, probably due to the drying winds of the Mediterranean. If you go to Erice, be sure to stop at the Pasticerria del Convento -- a strange name for a pastry shop, but try one of their "belli brutti" and you'll see why the religious name is appropriate.

Next on my list was Palermo, beacuse it was almost time to leave for northern Italy. I
bypassed all the other classical sites around the western end of the island that you might want to see if you have time, and took the train back to Palermo. As I said, I was avoiding cities on this trip, but this one was pleasing for the friendly people.

I stayed for one night in Palermo (the Hotel Cortese, a very nice modern place, with very
reasonable rates) and got to watch my first Italian television. It's rather amusing to watch Matlock, Judge Wapner, and the evening news in italian. You will be pleased to know that even over there, they have infomercials for pasta machines, exersize equipment, and used car dealers.

Anyway, after this I left for the Amalfi Coast, just south of Naples. I reserved a seat direct from Palermo to Salerno (reservations cost 5000 lire regardless of distance, generally unnecessary except for long trips), and slept most of the way there. The ferry crossing from Sicily to the mainland was interesting -- they put the entire train on the boat, and if you stay in the train, you would probably hardly notice,
except for some swaying.

Below, I've got some typical prices for things when I was there, but a closing note first: Sicily is amazing, and I hope that I'll get to go back sometime soon. You know how you can sometimes gauge your speed of life by how many times you check email per day, or your connection speed? Well, some
places in Sicily, I think they may never even care to know what the internet is. I'm happy
to go to a place like that to get perspective once in a while (more often if I had the
chance). Hope you enjoy your trip -- feel free to ask more questions, and I'll be happy to post.

an interesting link on travel in Sicily I came across: www.bestofsicily.com

Phone card 5000 lire (10 minutes local, approx. -- remember to break off the little tab on the
corner!)
Bottle of water 750 to 1500 lire (supermarket vs. train station)
Quick sandwich lunch 3000 lire
Pizza lunch 8000 lire
Basic sit down dinner 15000
Elaborate dinner 25000
Museum admission (greek outdoor sites) 5000
Bus fare (local within city) 2000

Hotel room (Palermo) 35000/night
(Siracusa) 25000
(Giardini) 30000
(clean, efficient, 1-2 star places)

Train fare (2nd class Catania to Siracusa)
7500(?)

Having read your excellent report, my wife and I are looking fwd to this trip more than ever!