Week stay after Biking. Help please

My wife and I are seniors, and will be taking a bike trip in Italy this September We have been fortunate to have biked many times in Europe, and have typically opted to spend another week or ten days nearby in a more leisurely holiday after the bike portion of our trip. Ideally we would like a pleasant beach town where we could rent a small flat for a week, doing some touring by car in the region, and some lazing on the beach. Any suggestions, particularly from the Sicily experts, are very welcome. Thanks !



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One-week stay with small kid

We are planning a one-week trip to Sardinia with our 2.5 year old daughter late August. Looking for a small hotel or serviced villa/apartment (even a farm stay):

- at walking distance to a beautiful beach with shallow waters

- with a pool / playground ideally

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Where to stay, family with toddler

We are planning a one-week trip to Sardinia with our 2.5 year old daughter late August. Looking for a small hotel or serviced villa/apartment:

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Help with trip planning- 1 week in Eastern Sicily- November

Just booked our first trip to Sicily and will spend 7 nights in mid-November 2021. I realize not enough time, so looking to probably focus on the eastern part of the island and fly into Catania. Have some questions to help with planning

1)Thinking of spending around 3 nights in the Syracuse, Noto, Modica area. Which city/town is the best place to stay and explore from there? Planning to most likely do local buses to explore during the day

2) We'd like to spend 2 to 3 nights in the Mount Etna area and possibly stay in Taormina for part of it. Thinking of renting a car from Catania for this part of our trip. If not, anyone have a tour group they recommend for tours of Mount Etna.

3) We hate to miss Palermo, but realize with only a week you need to make choices. Will there be get similar food markets in Catania to those you find in Palermo.

4) We would not to spend a day sampling wines and wondering which region to target in the areas we plan to visit.

Thanks much for any comments you can provide!

Sicily & the yellow zone - the reality?

Hi,

My wife and I are due to travel to Sicily from the UK for a 2 week trip, last week of September/first week of October. This would be our first visit and we planned to rent a car and tour some of the island staying in a few different places - Palermo, Cefalu, Aelion islands, Taormina, Syracuse.

Now that the yellow zone restrictions have been reintroduced, we were hoping for some first hand experiences as to what impact this might have for us? Ideally from locals or people who have recently visited or are currently visiting Sicily.

We would obviously follow all the local restrictions and mask rules, we are fully vaccinated ourselves, plus both recovered from previous covid infections some time ago. However we have some concerns that our plans to tour around might mean we would be wearing our masks pretty much all day every day (when not driving) and that the restrictions will result in places we would like to visit being closed or very restricted.

So we are now considering whether to book elsewhere and head to Sicily another time. Or are we worrying too much?

Two weeks in sicily by public transport?

Hi! I'm planning on doing a long holiday in Italy from the end of September until November. I will be doing most of my transport via public transport, but biking/hiking or renting a car every now and then might be an option too.

What I'm currently thinking about:

- Enter sicily by train, hop off on the east coast. Visit Taormina, Catania, Siracusa, and possibly Ragusa as main sites. 5 days?

- Take the ferry from either Pozzallo or Augusta to Malta

- Spend about a week on Malta

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- take the ferry from Porto Torres to Barcelona

Is this a feasibily itinerary? The suggested staying times for these places seem to be all over the place (e.g. 5 days enough for Sicily, two weeks in Malta) so I'm wondering if I'm taking it easy enough or if I could include Amalfi for example. Is two weeks in Sicily enough if I go by public transport? I want to see the main sites and take some relaxed days off too. I don't need to spend days in every town exploring every alley.

I plan on staying in hostels and cheap hotel rooms mostly. I can also bring camping gear but I'm not entirely sure if it's worth it as I think a lot of campings will already be closed in October. I don't particularly have a set budget but I prefer to spend my cash on good food and perhaps some guides. I don't have a need for luxury hotels or driving a car everywhere.

Edited: 10:23 am, August 25, 2021

best hotel near beach near Cagliari

Evening

Me and my wife are coming in September for four days and was wondering what is the best area to stay in. We are flying into Cagliari airport and would like to be on the beach but near a town with bars and sightseeing no more than an hour away from the airport, any suggestions?

Regards

Syracuse Catania AND Taormina in October?

Early stages of planning a 2 to 3 week trip around Sicily. Will finish along the east coast and fly out of Catania. I am thinking two to three days each for Syracuse and Catania with one day trip to Taormina from Catania. Am I being fair, reasonable in my expectations? A little bird tells me that I should spend more time in Taormina (which would likely be at the expense of time in Catania.) Interests are historical/artistic more than beach/landscape. Would also welcome recommendations on places to stay - convenient with character as we will not be hiring a car.

14 Days in Sicily - help with itinerary

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

Sicily for 4-6 weeks - mid June-late July; or after August

Hi there,

My family of 4 (kids aged 9 and nearly 5) are planning a trip to Sicily for 4-6 weeks in 2023 (and other parts of Italy too after the 4-6 weeks are up). We will rent a car for most of our stay.

We are planning to come in mid-June, which is the earliest we can arrive that spring.

My main question is: We aren't certain though if we should stay through to the end of July (6 weeks)?

We don't really know what its like in July, as we've been to Sicily in different periods befo

* early-mid June a few years ago (a bit north of Catania, Ortigia, Agriturismo Silitti near Caltanisetta, Marsala, Scopello); and

* a few days in early October for our honeymoon about 10 years ago (Ortigia and an agriturismo called Zottopera near Chiaramonte Gulfi).

We would ideally like to have a relaxing time with the kids in Sicily - and are hoping to avoid extreme heat (e.g. over 33 Celsius) during the middle of the day, crazy busy-ness and the worst of the Italian school holidays.

We are planning to stay in 2 or 3 spots as bases (about 10 days each): something like beachside near Noto/Ragusa, another near Palermo; and possibly an agriturismo in a central region or near a nice village (in a different region) as a third base. With possible weekend stays in Ortigia, Palermo, Cefalu and San Vito lo Capo.

Most places in Italy we'd like to visit mention September/October as ideal timing to visit, which I believe is also true for Sicily. But if we can visit Sicily at the start of our trip, we can leave September for areas like further north like Tuscany, Urbino, Ascoli Piceno.

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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!