Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean and, for most of its history, a world unto itself, fought over and adorned by every power that sailed these waters.
Go in April to June and September to October.
- Fly into
- Catania (CTA), Palermo (PMO)
- Capital
- Palermo
- Size
- 25,832 km² (9,974 sq mi), about the size of Vermont
- People
- 4.8 million
Greeks raised temples at Agrigento and Segesta and a theatre at Syracuse where Aeschylus once premiered his tragedies. Arabs and Normans together built the gold-mosaic chapels of Palermo and Monreale, three cultures fused in a single room. After the earthquake of 1693, the southeast rose again in honey-coloured Baroque at Noto, Ragusa and Modica.
Over it all looms Etna, Europe's tallest active volcano, its black slopes given over to vineyards and citrus. The Sicilian table is its own argument for coming: arancini and panelle from the street markets, pistacchio di Bronte, the almonds of Avola, blood oranges, and sweet Marsala and Passito di Pantelleria to finish.
Come in spring, when the almond trees blossom around the temples, or in early autumn, when the sea is still warm and the festivals fill the squares.
What to see in Sicily
Save the ones you want and we'll find which of our routes reaches the most in the fewest nights.
Mount Etna
Catania Etna is a living volcanic landscape: UNESCO-listed high slopes, lava formations and communities shaped by the mountain.
Stromboli
An inhabited Aeolian volcano shaped by persistent eruptions, a great collapse scar and the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Villa Romana del Casale
Piazza Armerina A Roman hunting villa whose mudslide-sealed floors preserve the richest Roman mosaics in existence.
Monreale Cathedral
William II's golden mosaic cathedral above Palermo, its cloister ringed by two hundred carved twin columns.
Ortigia
The island heart of Syracuse, layering Greek temples, the Arethusa spring, and Baroque streets in one kilometer.
Cefalu Cathedral
Cefalù Roger II's twin-towered Norman cathedral over Cefalù's beach, with one of Sicily's earliest Pantocrators.
Syracuse Cathedral
Ortigia The cathedral built inside a Greek temple of Athena, its Doric columns still holding up the walls.
Noto Cathedral
Noto's honey-stone cathedral, rebuilt after its dome fell in 1996, crowning a grand Baroque staircase.
The short answer
- At least
- 7 nights
- Within a day out
- 5 of these 8
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How many nights in Sicily?
Choose your nights and the route redraws: where to sleep, what to see, and the towns an easy day out from each base.
3 nights in Sicily: Palermo for 2 and Cefalù for 1.5 nights in Sicily: Palermo for 3 and Cefalù for 2.7 nights in Sicily: Palermo for 3, Syracuse for 2 and Taormina for 2.10 nights in Sicily: Palermo for 3, Agrigento for 2, Syracuse for 3 and Taormina for 2.
Add your first day and each link opens on that stop's dates.
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Where to stay in Sicily
Each stop with what to see and, where we have them, a day out and the hotel we'd book.
Sicily's exuberant capital wears its Arab-Norman past in the golden mosaics of the Palatine Chapel and the layered cathedral that holds Frederick II's tomb.
- Day out
- Monreale
A nine-room hotel in Mondello, Palermo's seaside district, with a restaurant that reworks Sicilian tradition and a cooked-to-order breakfast.
Check dates: Domìa Boutique HotelMore in Palermo
Villa Igiea
A Basile-designed Liberty villa on the Palermo shore, with period interiors and murals, for a grand seaside stay outside the centre.
Check dates: Villa IgieaAn eighteenth-century palace near Palermo's cathedral, now a small hotel with a cafe, for a stay in the old centre.
Check dates: Palazzo Natoli
60 km from Palermo as the crow flies
A handsome seaside town on the Tyrrhenian coast, gathered beneath a great rocky headland called La Rocca.
Its twin-towered Norman cathedral, raised on a vow by Roger II, holds the earliest of Sicily's Christ Pantocrator mosaics above a fine sandy beach.
90 km from Palermo as the crow flies
A hill city above the southern coast, overlooking the Valley of the Temples.
205 km from Palermo as the crow flies
155 km from Agrigento as the crow flies
Once among the greatest cities of the Greek world and the home of Archimedes, Syracuse spreads from the island of Ortigia to the Neapolis quarter.
- Day out
- Noto
A small guesthouse on the Syracuse waterfront with individually furnished rooms and a rooftop terrace, for a simple stay by the sea.
Check dates: Dimore delle Zagare Al MoloMore in Syracuse
Sixty individually designed rooms in the old town of Ortigia, a few steps from the sea, for a stylish island base.
Check dates: Algilà Ortigia Charme HotelA suite hotel on the Syracuse seafront just outside Ortigia, with sea-view rooms and a spa, for a quieter stay near the old town.
Check dates: Re Dionisio Boutique Hotel
85 km from Syracuse as the crow flies
Sicily's most glamorous resort, a cliff-top town between the sea and Mount Etna.
A small boutique hotel by the cable car, with a garden pool and a sea-view terrace, handy for Mazzarò and Isola Bella.
Check dates: Villa FioritaMore in Taormina
Hotel Villa Belvedere
A hotel with a palm-fringed pool and many rooms overlooking Naxos Bay and Mount Etna, a short walk from Taormina's Corso Umberto.
Check dates: Hotel Villa BelvedereGrand Hotel Timeo
A nineteenth-century grand hotel directly below the Greek Theatre, with Etna views from its terraces and a long history of artist and writer guests.
Check dates: Grand Hotel Timeo
Other places to stay
Villa Fiorita
A small boutique hotel by the cable car, with a garden pool and a sea-view terrace, handy for Mazzarò and Isola Bella.
Check dates: Villa FioritaDimore delle Zagare Al Molo
A small guesthouse on the Syracuse waterfront with individually furnished rooms and a rooftop terrace, for a simple stay by the sea.
Check dates: Dimore delle Zagare Al MoloHotel Villa Belvedere
A hotel with a palm-fringed pool and many rooms overlooking Naxos Bay and Mount Etna, a short walk from Taormina's Corso Umberto.
Check dates: Hotel Villa BelvedereGrand Hotel Timeo
A nineteenth-century grand hotel directly below the Greek Theatre, with Etna views from its terraces and a long history of artist and writer guests.
Check dates: Grand Hotel TimeoTorre Don Virgilio Country Hotel
An old farmhouse hotel in the Val di Noto countryside outside Modica, with a landscaped garden, pool and a restaurant serving traditional cooking.
Check dates: Torre Don Virgilio Country HotelSixty individually designed rooms in the old town of Ortigia, a few steps from the sea, for a stylish island base.
Check dates: Algilà Ortigia Charme HotelA restored early-twentieth-century Liberty villa with Art Nouveau furnishings, frescoes and breakfast in a flowering cloister, close to Via Etnea and the Duomo.
Check dates: Liberty Hotel
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A traditional dinner from Sicily
Every course is one the region actually serves. Change any of them and the wine, the timing and the shopping list follow.
Antipasto
Caponata
Fried eggplant, celery and olives meet ripe tomatoes, pine nuts and a bright sweet-and-sour dressing.
First course
Pasta alla Norma
Rigatoni with fried eggplant, tomato, basil and grated ricotta salata, in a version of Catania’s pasta alla Norma.
Main course
Sarde a beccafico with raisins and pine nuts
Butterflied sardines rolled around toasted breadcrumbs, raisins and pine nuts, then baked with lemon and bay.
Side
Insalata di arance
A Sicilian orange salad with tomatoes, red onion, olives, mint and basil, dressed just before serving.
Dessert
Sicilian cannoli
Crisp cocoa-and-Marsala shells filled at the last moment with sheep’s-milk ricotta, dark chocolate, orange peel and pistachios.
What to pour
A young Etna Rosso from the volcano above Catania: Nerello Mascalese’s bright acidity and light tannin lift the tomato and cut the fried eggplant.
Start the Sicilian cannoli the day before: 10 hr 15 min, most of it waiting.
Taste it there
Palermo on a plate, food and wine
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What Sicily is known for
You will find these here and nowhere else.
Caravaggio named it: a Greek quarry cut into Syracuse's limestone, curved like an ear and some twenty metres high, where a single voice fills the dark.
Lipari has a white mountain: quarrymen cut Monte Pilato back to a pumice cliff about 200 metres high, marble-bright above a sea turned turquoise by its dust.
The English merchant John Woodhouse fortified Marsala for long sea voyages, and Florio's tuff cellars near the shore still hold it in thousands of oak casks.
Vines on Etna’s slopes
Etna gives Sicily a wine landscape shaped by volcanic ground and cultivated slopes. Nerello Mascalese and Carricante offer two starting points for understanding its wines. Keep the vineyards distinct from the protected high volcano: a wine-country visit and a mountain excursion are different experiences, even when the same mountain dominates the view.
At Christmas
A Sicilian Christmas table can take several shapes. Choose pasta con le sarde for a savoury course, then decide whether the sweet finish will be a cassata or cannoli filled close to serving. Cannoli’s older Carnival association remains part of their history; serving them at Christmas does not change it. Open the complete recipes before setting the menu and the preparation schedule.
Where next
Calabria
Calabria is the wild toe of Italy's boot, ringed by 800 kilometers of coast and backed by the forests of the Sila and Aspromonte.
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Campania
Campania is Italy at full volume, where Vesuvius looms over Naples and the Amalfi Coast falls in pastel terraces to a turquoise sea.
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Basilicata
Basilicata, the ancient Lucania, is Italy's least-visited mainland region, a wild interior of stone towns crowned by Matera and its cave-carved Sassi.
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