Tell me about Sicily...

I'm guessing somebody has been in the meantime...

Any tips? Spending about a week in Palermo (with day trips to Agrigento, Cefalu and Monreale planned), and a couple of days each in Messina, Syracuse, Catania and Modica. No car, doing it all by train.

Was just there in June and went to some of the places on your itinerary - will send some tips once I’m in front of a computer

Ta. I've got some outline ideas but nothing that can't make space for better suggestions.

That said, Crowley's Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu is firmly nailed on.

Awesome, have a great trip! We were also there in June, but we were splitting two weeks between Sardini and Sicily. We also had a few off-the-beaten things on our personal to-do list, like visiting the hometown of my partner's great-grandparents, and seeing the very strange "Cretto di Burri" land-art piece in the middle of nowhere. So with a more straightforward itinerary, you'll be able to relax a lot more and soak it in... and doing it by train will both save some headaches and let you rule things out easily. Here are my miscellaneous and poorly-edited thoughts:

* Day trips from Palermo --- We got rained out on our beach day in Cefalu, darn it, but the town is beautiful and a very straightforward train trip to/from Palermo. I don't think you'll regret this one. We ended up just hanging out at this seafood and pasta restaurant Tinchite for a prolonged lunch - no complaints. Monreale was high on our "wish we'd had time" list.

* Palermo itself --- my favorite thing was probably the Piazza Bellini, which has three amazing churches in three distinct styles (Arab-Norman, Byzantine, Sicilian Baroque) --- and the Baroque one includes a wonderful pastry shop staffed by the nuns, so you can get a cannoli and granitas and plop in the courtyard for a rest. We also loved the botanical garden here, and got really good cheap street food at Friggitoria Chiluzzo over there. The Teatro Massimo is cool if you dig late-19th century glitz, and the Palazzo Steri (combined ticket with the botanical garden) is neat though heavy on the tales of Inquisition prisoners. Palazzo Steri has nice old-master art. If we'd had more time, I would have hit up the Gesu church and the cathedral (more Baroque), and the chapel at the Royal Palace (more Byzantine gilding everywhere) - though Monreale will probably check those boxes just fine. Supposedly the Palazzo Valguarnera Gangi (known from The Leopard) has tours on Sundays, but information is scanty.

* We spent an afternoon, night and a long morning in Ortigia, including an afternoon outing to the Greco-Roman sites in Syracuse. The theater in Syracuse was completely closed up with setting-up or taking-down a performance, but the rest of the site is also pretty cool, especially the descent into the quarry/garden with the "ear of Hercules" cave. Ortigia, in turn, is a VERY cute seaside town. Great streetscapes, touristy of course but whattyagonnado. Great sandwiches at Caseificio Borderi. In hindsight, we would have been happy to spend a little longer there, to just relax a little more, hit up the archaeological museum maybe. In that general region, Noto was a late cut from our itinerary - if you like Baroque churches and streetscape, it looks very bountiful for those things, but will take some time.

* Taormina is mega-touristy and bougie... but for good reason - the topography and cuteness really are off the charts. However, one full day, night and morning here honestly did it for us. The real highlights were the Greco-Roman theater, the Picturesque follies and ocean views from the Villa Comunale garden, pistachio gelato at Novè and unreal granitas at Bam Bar. One good stroll along the Corso Umberto, and a little wandering up and down in the streets, will kind of tell the rest of the story. All the shops sell basically the same knicknacks, with the Di Blasi store standing out for ceramics with some actual quirk/character. We did an afternoon on the hilltop Castello di Mola area, but I wouldn't rate that super high --- in a way the best part was the vertiginous bus ride up there. The actual experience being there wasn't quite as jaw-dropping as Taormina itself.

* More out of the way (i.e., if you did want to do ONE "we're taking a bus / hiring a car" kind of thing): as an archi-nerd I was dead-set on seeing at least one of the major Greek sites (Agrigento, Selinunte, Segesta). Agrigento was a little too much of a detour for us, so we went with Segesta and loved it. Caught the temple near the end of the day with gorgeous golden light on everything, and still enough time to take the museum's shuttle bus to the top of the hill for the theater. Our stay that night was at an agriturismo just around the bend (the lovely "Tenute Pispisa Segesta") and the driveway there gave ANOTHER spectacular view of the temple. I'm also glad that we did some agriturismo stays, the quality varied a bit in our experience but the dinner format of "and here's ANOTHER course of a different local favorite" was always welcome. Anyway, since Agrigento can be done by train, I think it makes sense to go with that. Just be advised that the archaeological area is enormous - I'd do some research beforehand and get a sense of whether you want to spend a full day tromping around there, or just hit some highlights.

Yes I thought about the Greek sites and realised you can easily get 8 hours there from Palermo on the train with 14 if you do very first and last trains.

Plan is to be there before 10 and do maybe 4 hours in Valley of the Temples which will leave a good 3-4 in the town centre before getting back on the train.

nice! yeah, sounds like a full but do-able day, maybe with a light snooze on the train coming back. i think the Segesta version would be like an hour-long bus ride from Palermo (there's a Fascist-era train station there but it's just a pizzeria now, no trains)... so still a half-day kind of thing. and from everything I've read, Agrigento is the more amazing site, if you've got the time and energy.

OK so on our recent trip, we flew into Catania, spent two days there, then rented a car and drove down to Ragusa, stopping at Noto on the way and with two side trips to Modica; then we drove up from that end of the island up to Palermo, stopping en route at the Scala dei Turchi. We didn't really stop at any of the Grecian ruins so I don't have any recs there, I'm afraid - we were told that many of the best ones are largely only accessible by car. We turned our car in at the airport once we got to Palermo because we didn't want to drive there, which turned out to be a great decision. We then stayed in Palermo for a few days with a day trip to Cefalù (which I felt was plenty, tbh), and then very sadly and grudgingly returned to the US. We skipped Taormina and didn't make it to Agrigento.

Catania: if it's hot out while you're there, the Anfiteatro Romano Catania is a nice place to spend some time, it's the ruins of an old amphitheatre that exist under the city. Our B&B was located near an anarchist bookstore/cafe where we had an aperitivo on our first night, great people-watching space. Churches (it's Sicily, you're gonna go to a lot of churches) include the Chiesa di San Nicolo All'Arena. Catania is very proud of its native son Vincenzo Bellini and there's statuary and tributes to him everywhere, there's a nice park (Villa Bellini) where you can hear some of his operas piped through loudspeakers. The fish market is great (wear closed-toed shoes tho), and Scirocco nearby has terrific fried seafood. Also take a few minutes every day to observe all the swallows darting through the sky.

Modica: I now tell everybody that if they plan to go to Sicily that Modica (and nearby Noto and Ragusa) should 100% be on your agenda, so I'm happy to hear you're going there. They are some of the most stunning places I've ever been to in my life. Modica and Ragusa were both largely built into the sides of cliffs so there's this beautiful ascending slope to both towns that reveal themselves to you when you drive into them. Modica is renowned for its chocolate and there's a very charming chocolate museum in the town where you can see some absolutely wild chocolate sculptures on display. There's a train tour that takes you up to the high parts of Modica which I recommend - it's otherwise a real trek to get up there). Go to Fede for incredible pastries.

Noto: this also shows up in White Lotus S2 (it's the place where Aubrey Plaza and the other woman go on their side trip and she gets ogled by the locals). Many incredible churches there, the Duomo di San Nicolo is terrific. We drove to a nearby beach called the Tonnara di Vendicari that sits near the ruins of an old tuna fishery, visually not the most stunning thing but the water was warm and felt amazing.

Ragusa: You can take the train from Modica to Ragusa easily and I recommend it, they're about 30 minutes apart and trains run frequently. We had two wonderful meals there: an aperitivo at Salumeria Barocco consisting entirely of local meats and cheeses, and a sit-down meal at Cucina Sincera that was lovely, one of the fondest eating memories I have from the whole trip. Lots of beautiful churches here too, those baroccos knew what they were doing.

Palermo: the Cappella Palatina is an absolute must, although it's partially under restoration at the moment so you won't get the full grandeur of it, but I literally gasped when I walked inside, it's unbelievable. I enthusiastically endorse Doctor Casino's rec for the monastery pastry; get the cannoli (it's assembled in front of you and is also gigantic), plus recommend grabbing a bunch of different pastries while you're there and having them for breakfast the next day. Osteria Alivarù was delicious as was Le Angeliche (on the fancier end of things but I had a dish with marinated cucumber in it there that I am still dreaming about). At the Cattedrale di Palermo, spend a little extra to climb up to the rooftop for an incredible panorama of the city. The anti-mafia museum is worth looking at although the curation was a little confusing imho. The outdoor market is absolutely worth stopping by, it's kind of an intense experience (in a great way). Not sure if there's anything happening at Teatro Massimo while you're there but worth checking the schedule, those Italian opera houses are unreal. We stayed in a somewhat hip neighborhood and it was a party every night. The little row of bars on Via Alessandro Paternostro near the Antica Focacceria (also very good!) were lively and fun.

Cefalù: hit up one of the lidos for sure and rent a beach chair. They all seemed nice to me, the one that was recommended to us (forget the name offhand) was already booked up when we went, but they're all close to one another. Walk through the town for sure, it's touristy but the views are gorgeous. I had an exquisite octopus starter at Mas Que Nada. I didn't even know about the Crowley thing when I was there!

Food-wise: gotta try all the arancini, obvs. A local snack to try in Ragusa if you go is scaccia, which is a layered bread with tomato sauce, cheese and sometimes other things like eggplant inside. We ate loooots of seafood and dishes with eggplant in them throughout the trip. If you're feeling adventurous (and you eat meat), pani ca meuse is worth trying once - it's a popular Palermitano street food sandwich consisting of veal lung and spleen fried in lard served on soft sesame bread (get it with cheese). Gotta try some panelle too (fried chickpea fritters, sometimes mixed with potatoes).

Typing this all out, I feel that it is absolutely criminal that I am not currently in Sicily!! Absolute dream of a place, cannot wait to get back there. Please report back!

We didn't get to Palermo when we visited a few months ago but If I'd have known about the Catacombe dei Cappuccini (200 years of embalmed corpses) I might have tried...

Cefalu is very touristy, I agree a day trip is plenty (we spent three days there but just so the kids could have some beach days, this was back in Easter so it was quieter and not so hot).

Etna is cool, you don't have to take the cable car to the top to get the feel of it, no idea how viable it is with public transport though.

great post donna rouge, just added a couple of things to our "if we ever go back someday" wishlist.

The whole thing for us having no car isn't the lack of desire (although I have no love for driving abroad, I have done it) more so that we're flying into Naples and having a couple of nights there before getting train - and therefore the train-ferry - down the coast. In fact, that's what kicked off the whole idea for the trip (which now looks like great foresight since Meloni is supposedly going through with the bridge).

Anyway thanks all for the tips. Churches and architecture and archaeology are our things so much of the stuff above was on our radar especially ossuaries (having been to ones in various other cities) and incorruptible bodies.

The Crowley place is weird, not sure how close you can get because it's private land that's permanently up for sale but I've seen a few people say you can get in quite easily and the authorities' attempt at literally whitewashing the former use hasn't completely covered the murals.

A somewhat more minor architecture thing: the Palazzi Steri and Abbatellis, mentioned above in museum contexts, have significant midcentury restoration/interventions by the idiosyncratic Venetian Carlo Scarpa. It's not his best or most beloved work --- nothing on the level of his castle-museum in Verona or the Querini Stampalia gallery in Venice. And the tour of Steri will practically hustle you past his one really brilliant space there. But if you happen to be a Scarpa fan, they're lovely to see.

I would have honestly been happier to do our trip without the car, except for the couple of spots that were high on our list that really required it. Again, one of those was a family-history stop, very much off the beaten path. We also did donna rouge's thing of ditching the car at the airport before entering Palermo, and did not miss it for a second while we were there.