New itinerary feedback

Due to the unique current offerings airline wise we have 6 nights/7 days in Sicily as part of a broader trip. We fly into Catania midday day 1, and our departure is from Palermo at 8pm, offering a near full-day in Palermo on day 7 (with bags safely stored with our hotel)

My dilemma is allocating the 6th night.

So far we’ve settled on 2 nights in Ortigia, 2 in Taormina, 1 in Palermo. For our 6th night I cannot determine if we should devote 3 nights to Ortigia as our base to have more time for places such as Noto etc or place a 2nd night to Palermo to have 2 full nights between transfers.

My current thinking if 3/2/1 is arrive Catania middday day 1, head to Ortigia and spend afternoon/evening there.

Day 2 - visit Noto, Ragusa, Marzememi or so one (1-2 of these).

Day 3 - visit another couple of places

Day 4- drive to Taormina, staying there.

Day 5 - visit Etna or gorges etc

Day 6 - to Palermo, spending part of the day in Cefalu

Day 7 - Palermo till leave for our flight late in day.

Is this a wise itinerary or should we forego the 2nd day of exploring behind Syracuse in favor of 2 nights based in Palermo?

Hi

How do we get to/from Scopello without a car?

We have 10 days and the following itinerary (after many many changes)

3 nights Cefalu

2 nights Scopello

1 night Erice

3 nights Favignana

Many thanks Sofia

We are a ‘mature’ couple traveling to Italy with 11 nights open between Rome & Florence so decided to visit Sardegna in early September. Probably flying into Olbia & departing from Cagliari.

Enjoy white sandy beaches, crystal clear water (who doesn't?), swimming, drinking local wine & local food. Also realize that beaches in Sardegna are rocky.

Prefer to stay at hotels in town to walk to dinner and stroll around town at night. Will rent a car to drive to close beaches during the day, perhaps stay at a beach hotel for 2 or 3 nights if on a beautiful beach.

Any suggestions on itinerary - where to stay & for how many nights? Perhaps 3 locations with 11 nights? The more I read on this helpful forum, the more overwhelmed I become on where to stay.

San Teodoro, Orosei, Villasimius, Isola Carloforte? Departing from Cagliari; how many nights would you recommend staying there?

Will reserve rental car prior to arrival, as well as hotel 1st and last night. Should I make hotel reservations in advance for the rest of trip? September is a busy month and may be more so this year.

TYIA!

My husband and I visited Syracusa, Ortigia, and Catania a few years ago and promised we would return some day, and we are scheduled for 2 weeks in October! Can't wait!

We are interested in history, wine, biking, scenery, and local flavor. We do not want to be changing hotels every other day, so let me lay out what we are thinking and then get some feedback.

3-4 nights in Trapani: Fly into Palermo, rent a car at the airport, and drive to Trapani. If we aren't to tired we will detour to Segeste on the way. We would like to take the cable car to Erice, bike on Favignana, and then maybe visit salt flats.

Day 4: We were thinking that if we got up early we could make it to Agrigento, visit the ruins, and then continue on to Ragusa. If that's too much we would spend a night in Agrigento.

3-4 nights in Ragusa: We originally thought we would like to rent ebikes and visit wineries and other towns like we did in southern France and Tuscany, but as I'm researching I am wondering if that's a thing in that area. I couldn't find bike rental places in Ragusa and don't see any vineyards in that area either. (I did find a map that shows vineyards north of Vittoria and Comiso.)

3-4 nights in Palermo: We would do a day trip to Monreale cathedral, a day trip to Cefalu by train, and a day seeing the sights of Palermo.

Here are my questions:

1) Should we skip the Ragusa area and stay to the west, and if so, what should we do with those days? Should we stay in Vittorio or Comiso and try to rent bikes and visit those area wineries? Is that a pretty area? (I love the pics I've seen of Ragusa and Modica.)

2) Is there an area that has biking options (single day rides vs. multiple days). Ideally we would like to visit wineries on these rides, but scenery is a good incentive, too.

3) In my itinerary above I still have a few nights unaccounted for. Should I add another place, like Cefalu to the itinerary, or a place on the southern coast, or Marsalla, or should I just add the days to the places we are already staying?

4) We thought about visiting the Villa Romana del Casale, but it's about 2 hours north of Agrigento so not really on the way to any place unless we stayed in that area (Enna?) for a day or 2. Thoughts on that?

5) We also thought of staying overnight on Favignana to have 2 days of biking. Is that too much time allocated to see the island?

I will stop there. Vagabonda and others were so helpful on our last trip that I'm hoping for some common sense wisdom again this time. Thanks in advance!!

Kim

Hi

After a lot of thought we changed our plans to stay in Castellamare instead of San Vito. The reason was because we wanted a more authentic Sicilian town without hordes of tourists and crowds and really like the look of the marina, fishing boats and buildings.

We are really keen to go to Scopello and Zingaro by boat but can only find tours from San Vito, any advice on this? How much is it to rent your own boat, how does this work, how far is it to Zingaro? If boat is not an option, how frequent are buses and how far is it? I read somewhere that the park is partially closed due to a fire is this still the case? We will not have a car.

Is there any local beach in Castellamare or anything else to do if we don’t want to go to Zingaro every day?

FYI our itinerary will be:

Flying into and out of Palermo we have 10 full days

3 nights Castellamare

3 nights Trapani/Erice

3 nights Favignana

Many thanks!

Dear All,

I'm trying to work out the itinerary for our visit to Sicily (travelling with my girlfriend) starting on the 10th of June. We arrive and also end our trip in Aeroporto di Palermo Falcone e Borsellino. I intend to rent a car through Auto Europe as suggested here in the forums. I also read it's best to avoid driving in Palermo and only hiring the car after departing the city. So as I understand we need to take the bus after flying in, and back again after 2-3 days to get the car?

Is the smallest category generally enough (C1, VW Up) for a couple or is it worth spending more (VW Polo, or upwards) for doing a road trip around Sicily?

Could you please help me to allocate the number of days appropriately? We are young, energetic, food and nature-loving people.

What I have in mind currently (open also for other suggestions):

Palermo, city and Monreale with the cathedral

Segesta with the temple, Erice medieval village

Mazzara del Vallo

Agrigento - Valley of Temples

Modica

Capo Passero

Pachino village

Siracusa

Taormina

Etna

Cefalu

Aeolian Islands

Mondello

In case this is too much for this amount of time, what questions should be raised to help with deciding what to skip/replace?

Also, is there any ticket that should be booked online in advance to avoid the crowds?

Thanks for your kind help and input!

Hoping to spend 10-14 nights in Tuscany next April for the wife’s 50 birthday. We’re flying into Pisa and hiring a car. Been to northern Italy plenty of times but this will be our first trip to Tuscany. I’m really just looking for ideas where best to stay 2-4 nights in each place. Small villages, picturesque towns. No big cities. If people just shout out a few towns I’ll take a look and work out our itinerary.

We are traveling to Trapini October 3rd. We had planned on on only 3 nights with only 2 full days.

From there we are traveling to Sorrento for 3 nights. We have been to Sorrento before but not Trapani or that area. We could easily switch to 4 nights in Trapani and 2 in Sorrento . Should we ?

Also what day trips should we include from Trapani? We considered Erice for sure and then either Segesta, Favignana Mazia or Mazara del vallo. We do not plan a car , but could consider it (we're nervous about local traffic nuances )

Thank you for any help. Brent

Hey there. We are planning a trip to Italy (and Paris) next June. We are bringing our DDs, first timers to Europe, ages 21 and 16. I’ve been reading through itineraries, guide books, youtube videos of Italy and getting so excited. We have limited time (only 10 nights in Italy) and we are packing in A LOT I know. We are considering using Zicasso or another company to make the most of our time, especially since we are trying to do so much...Here’s our latest itinerary so far. (we like to see as much as possible/get a taste so we know where to spend more time the next time:)

. Summary. 2 nights, 1 1/2 full days in Venice,

4 nights in Florence with day trip to Cinque Terre, 5 nights in Rome with day trip to Pompeii and Amalfi

*We already bought our tickets flying into Venice

Day 1. Arrive Venice from Paris on the 13th. Half day in Venice

Day 2. Venice

Day 3. Take a late train from Venice to Florence.

Day 4. Florence

Day 5. Florence. (Day trip to Cinque Terre)

Day 6 Florence

Day 7. Train to Rome by 7pm. Stay near Piazza Novana

Day 8. Rome

Day 9 Rome

Day 10. LONG day with private guide to Pompeii/Amalfi

Day 11. Rome

Day 12. Departure day

Grazie!

Dear all,

Would you please help me with itinerary for 10 days trip to Sicily, this June?

My former plan was for second half of June with return in beg. of July, flight to Palermo, leave from Catania, and stay in Palermo (visit Monreale, Cefalu), Agrigento, Modica (visit Ragusa), Siracuse and Taormina, 16-18 days.

But now I can't stay until the end of June, I don't want to go in July or August as it will be too hot for sightseeing, so I am trying to find some shorter version. I was more interested in eastern part (baroque towns, Ortigia and Taormina), but as there aren't direct flights until July, I am thinking about visiting Palermo, and stay on some nice beach for few days. There are direct flight to Trapani, so start and end there.

I am traveling with almost 3 yo (with stroller and baby carrier), and only by public transport. I wanted to see Palermo, so I would keep this from former plan, but I don't know where to go next, for 3/4 nights.

1 Trapani (morning flight), move to Palermo, afternoon in Palermo

2 Palermo

3 Palermo, half day trip Monreale

4 Palermo, day trip Cefalu

5 Palermo, day trip Agrigento (not sure with this, as it is quite a long time in train there and back)

6, 7, 8, 9 ? (last day move to Trapani, overnight before flight from there)

10 Trapani (morning flight)

I have found only an afternoon bus from Trapani airport to Palermo, so we have to go to city, and take a bus to Palermo from there?

I have read here in forum about Castellammare del Golfo, and it looks nice. Is there a good connection between Palermo - Castellammare and Castellammare and Trapani?

If I stay close to, I would also like to visit Zingaro reserve, I found that it is open again, but it seems that only way to go there is by privat car, or taxi - or is there some option via public transport? If taxi - how much, and is it possible to book one with car seat? Would it be better to stay in San Vito de Capo, or Scopello, for Zingaro visit? And last - 3yo may walk or be in baby carrier, baby stroller is useless in Zingaro (coastal way)?

Or do you have another idea for coastal town, with nice architekture, and beaches nearby?

Many thanks, Katjes