We spent the month of April on the mainland of Italy and then flew from Bologna to Palermo, Sicily. Our two month road trip road of the island of Sicily, during the months of May & June was purposely timed during the shoulder season. We are now flying from Catania, Sicily to Naples for our final week in Italy. We are then off to Turkey to spend the entire summer road tripping in a rental car, all of the beaches on the Turkish Mediterranean coast.
The months of April thru June was the ideal time to travel around Sicily. We wanted to avoid the crazy summer crowds during high season, which in my mind was guaranteed to be a far less enjoyable experience. As an alternative, visiting during the month of September would also work in avoiding the masses which descend upon the island of Sicily during the summer months. Note, most everything basically shuts down around the beach towns from mid-October till late April, so these months are probably best avoided unless you are looking for a real isolated and colder weather experience with limited restaurant options.
We stayed a full week in each Sicilian town and basically circled the island. Seven days in each location allowed us to dig in and leave ourselves open to wander, linger and just simply take a nap in a new place. That is where the famed Italian siesta time came into play. It took some time to get used to but we loved the Sicilian siesta time which we came to learn was a unique Italian way of life. Most everything in town closes between 1PM – 5PM. Siesta time forced us to slow down and just sit still in one place offering us a more rewarding experience than constant movement.
After years of extended travel, i have come to realize that lingering in places allow us to have longer lasting memories all while enabling us to live a lifestyle the way locals experience a place. Packing too much shit into a day and constantly moving from place to place requires a great deal of mental energy and can easily cause travel burnout. Slow and easy is our newly adopted travel philosophy. Sicily, being the largest island in the Mediterranean, needs ample time to explore as there are so many places to visit and things to see. Our two months enabled us to visit the best places on the island at a very leisurely pace.
The beauty of Sicily are all the incredible views while passing thru coastal towns and always being surrounded by fresh sea air and crystal clear blue/green sea water. Simply a relaxed and magical place.
The following are all the places in the order we visited:
Palermo, Cefalu, Castellammare del Golfo, San Vito Lo Capo, Trapani, Erice, Favignana Island, Agrigento, Noto, Marzamemi, Siracusa, Isle of Ortigia, Calabernardo, Catania.
The phone conversation went like this:
Me: Grazie, Prego
We both expected to put on some extra pounds as a result of indulging on all the unique Sicilian dishes, pasta and street food. Thankfully, most towns we visited on our road trip were walker friendly and we were able to burn off the calories wandering around the many inclines in each town. We still may have added a few pounds but I can confirm that we both have buns of steel from all the walking.
We also enjoyed the early evening “Passeggiata”, a traditional Italian evening walk/gathering where everyone catches up with everyone else. Every evening, after work and before dinner, locals (usually nicely dressed for the occasion) head to the downtown area and catch up with friends to shoot the shit. Weekends seemed to be more vibrant and active. Everyone from the newest babies to the oldest nonne are out on the streets to take it all in. It had a great sense of community.
We flew from Bologna in Emilia-Romagna to Palermo, Sicily. No car is needed in Palermo. We basically wandered all the alleyways of the city center and ate our way thru Palermo. It was a really cool city with great energy and a great city to walk around.
CEFALÚ –
We took the train from Palermo to the town of Cefalu. It was refreshing to arrive into this sunny beach town after all the recent city travel on mainland Italy. We loved the relaxed vibe of Cefalú and living on the seafront in our Airbnb. Cefalú is a must visit during the warm months. No car is needed to navigate around Cefalu but we picked up our rental car a day before our departure because we needed a car for our day trip drive thru the Madonie mountains. There are many cool mountain towns to visit and we chose to hang in and explore the town of Castelbueno.
CASTELLAMMARE DEL GOLFO-
We really enjoyed this small picturesque Sicilian town with it’s slow paced lifestyle and colorful marina area filled with seafood eateries. It served as a great base to explore all the beaches in the Scopello area and Riserva dello Zingaro.
Castellammare del Golfo took ’Siesta time’ to another level. The town becomes a virtual ghost town between the hours of 1PM – 4PM. We loved it. It was our cue to follow suit and indulge in siesta time along with the locals, taking the most incredible power naps. Barbie never normally naps during the day but the Castellammare chilled out atmosphere put her out during siesta time.
This beach town is very close to Castellammare del Golfo, but we decided to hunker down in San Vito for several nights in order to take in one of Sicily’s better white sandy beaches and the surrounding ocean front beach coves of Macari.
TRAPANI –
Another fun day trip was taking the cable car up to the historic town of Erice. It was good place to wander and eat.
What I loved about Agrigento was the wide sweeping unobstructed view of the sea and valley surrounding the town. The highlight of this town was checking out the Valley of the Temples, a vast archaeological site with ancient temples.
Another cool mellow town to wander around and hunker down. Noto is known for its baroque architecture, cathedrals along with a wide variety of food to eat and gelatos/granitas to down. What makes Noto great, is the accessibility (only 15 minute drive) to a ton of really cool beaches inside the Riserva di Vendicari along with the many surrounding area beaches outside of the reserve. A good day trip to the little Italian seaport hamlet of Marzamemi to have lunch and wander around was fun.
We returned our rental car upon arrival into Isle of Ortigia as you cannot drive on this tiny island.
We stayed a full week on this historic island wandering the alleyways, eating, enjoying the seafront walks/rocky beaches, eating, shopping, taking in an Italian Opera at the really cool outdoor Greek theatre…….and then eating some more. Great place. However, please note, we visited before the July/August summer rush. I cannot begin to imagine how crowded the tiny island alleyways would get during this time. July and August gets the big AVOID warning.
We picked up a fresh rental car in Siracusa following our stay on the Isle of Ortigia. We spent our last week in Sicily in a really cool Airbnb overlooking the sea in Calabernardo. There ain’t shit to do in Calabernardo other than being located on the sea and that is why we chose the place. The week was spent chilling on our deck and hanging out on one of the sweeping white sandy beach of Lido di Noto. The town served as a perfect wind down location to our two month road trip of Sicily. We celebrated our last night in Sicily with a great meal at the famous Ristorante Manna Noto, conveniently located right near our Airbnb.
Big Doug & Barbie Drop Out of Society 
It seems like no matter how remote a place is, there’s lots of other folks who were looking for — and found — the same location. The temples and statues look like you’re in Athens! The Greeks were conquerers of the world! Beautiful sites and sceneries.
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