Sicily travel guide

Greek temples, Arab-Norman churches, an active volcano, and the best street food in Italy — spread across the largest island in the Mediterranean, which is the part most itineraries get wrong.

First, accept that you cannot see all of it

Sicily is not a compact island you can base yourself in the middle of. Palermo to Catania is the best part of three hours on the motorway, Palermo to Siracusa is closer to four, and the roads that look like shortcuts on a map are mountain roads. The most common mistake is a six-day plan that touches Palermo, Agrigento, Siracusa, Etna and Taormina. It is physically possible. It is also a driving holiday with sightseeing attached.

On a week or less, pick a half. The west — Palermo, Trapani, Segesta, the salt pans and the Egadi islands — is one trip. The east and southeast — Catania, Etna, Siracusa, Noto, Ragusa, Taormina — is another. Two weeks lets you drive between them once, slowly, with Agrigento in the middle. Our Malta guide covers the closest comparison, and the trip planner will size a Sicily week against your budget and departure airport before you commit to either half.

Palermo and the west

Palermo is loud, layered and slightly chaotic, and it rewards people who walk it rather than tick it. The Cappella Palatina inside the Palazzo dei Normanni and the cathedral at Monreale, in the hills above the city, are the clearest surviving statement of what Norman kings built on Arab foundations with Byzantine mosaicists: gold ground, Islamic wooden ceilings, Latin plan, all in one room. The city cathedral, the Quattro Canti crossroads and the Martorana church sit within a short walk of each other.

West of Palermo the island opens out. Trapani sits on a hook of land facing the salt pans and windmills, with Erice on the mountain above it — a medieval town usually several degrees cooler and often in cloud. San Vito Lo Capo has the best-known sand beach in the west, the Zingaro reserve is a coastal walk between coves, and Favignana and the Egadi islands are a ferry ride offshore.

The Baroque southeast

In 1693 an earthquake flattened the southeast of the island. What went up afterwards, in the space of a few decades and largely in the same honey-coloured limestone, is why Noto, Modica, Ragusa, Scicli and their neighbours are collectively a UNESCO World Heritage site. This is the most walkable part of Sicily and the easiest to enjoy without a plan.

Ortigia is the one place in Sicily where staying in the historic centre is unambiguously worth it: small enough to cross in fifteen minutes, ringed by sea, and it empties out in the evening into the piazza in front of the Duomo.

Catania, Etna and Taormina

Catania is built out of its own volcano. The Baroque here is black lava stone rather than pale limestone, the elephant fountain in the cathedral square is carved from it, and the city has a working, un-prettified feel that Taormina does not. It is also the practical base for the east.

Taormina sits on a terrace high above the coast, with a Greek theatre positioned so the volcano frames the stage, and a cable car down to the beaches and the islet at Isola Bella. It is spectacular and it is busy — in high summer the main street is shoulder to shoulder. Go up early, or stay the night once the day visitors have gone.

Etna, properly

Etna is the most active volcano in Europe, and it behaves like a mountain range rather than a single cone: the summit craters shift, new vents open, and the recorded height changes after big eruptive episodes. It is above 3,000 metres, snow-covered in winter, and skiable — which surprises people who came to Sicily for the sea.

The southern approach from Rifugio Sapienza is the developed one, with a cable car and 4x4 transfers higher up; the northern side at Piano Provenzana is quieter. Going above the cable car station towards the summit area requires an authorised mountain guide, and access closes whenever activity or weather demands it, so treat any summit plan as conditional. The lower slopes are worth a day on their own: lava flows labelled with the year they arrived, the Alcantara gorge cut into basalt, the narrow-gauge Circumetnea railway looping around the base, and vineyards on volcanic soil producing the Nerello Mascalese reds that made Etna a serious wine region. Bring a layer — it is routinely cold up there while the coast below is in the thirties.

The Aeolian islands

Seven volcanic islands north of the coast, reached by hydrofoil from Milazzo. Lipari is the largest and the transport hub; Salina is the green one, with vineyards and capers; Vulcano has the fumaroles you smell before you land; Stromboli erupts on a rhythm of minutes and is watched from a boat after dark; Filicudi and Alicudi are for people who want almost nothing to happen. They deserve their own days rather than a rushed detour, and connections thin out sharply outside summer.

Eating in Sicily

Sicilian food is Mediterranean cooking with a layer of Arab influence still visible in it: sugar and spice next to fish, raisins and pine nuts in savoury dishes, almond everywhere. Pasta con le sarde — sardines, wild fennel, raisins, pine nuts — is the clearest example. Pasta alla Norma, from Catania, is fried aubergine, tomato and salty ricotta salata. Caponata is sweet-and-sour aubergine that improves overnight. Fish couscous is the standard dish around Trapani and San Vito Lo Capo.

Arancini are fried rice balls, most often with ragù or with ham and mozzarella. Ask for them in Palermo and you will be corrected: in the west they are arancine, and round; in the east they are often conical, in the shape of the volcano.

Street food and markets

Palermo's street food is a cuisine in its own right and the markets are where to eat it. Ballarò is the biggest and the most local, Vucciria is largely an evening drinking scene now, and the Capo market sits between the two. Look for panelle, chickpea-flour fritters served in a bread roll, often with crocchè; sfincione, a thick spongy pizza topped with onion, anchovy and breadcrumbs rather than cheese; and, if you are game, pane con la milza, the spleen sandwich. In Catania, La Pescheria behind the cathedral square is a working fish market, at its best early and loud.

Sweet things and granita

Have cannoli filled to order, never pre-filled — the shell should still be brittle. Cassata is the ricotta and marzipan cake that appears at every celebration. And in summer, breakfast in the east is granita with a brioche col tuppo: almond, coffee, lemon, pistachio or mulberry, eaten with a spoon and the soft brioche dunked into it. It is a real meal, not a dessert eaten at the wrong time.

The older layers

Greek Sicily is not a footnote — Siracusa was one of the great cities of the Greek world, and Segesta's temple stands alone in open country while Selinunte is a whole ruined city on the sea. The Valle dei Templi at Agrigento is the headline: a ridge of Doric temples above the coast, with the Temple of Concordia largely intact because it spent centuries as a church. Go early or late; there is very little shade. Inland at Piazza Armerina, the Villa Romana del Casale preserves an enormous floor area of Roman mosaic. Add the Arab-Norman churches and the Baroque of the southeast and you have four civilisations within a few hours' drive.

Getting around, and when to go

Outside the cities, hire a car. Trains exist and the coastal lines are scenic, but they are slow and sparse, and cross-island journeys are usually faster by long-distance coach than by rail. In Palermo and Catania the opposite applies: park outside the centre, watch for restricted traffic zones, and walk. Roads are good on the motorways and narrow everywhere else.

Summer inland is genuinely severe — Agrigento, Piazza Armerina and the interior in July and August are a different proposition from the breezy coast, and midday sightseeing is a mistake. Late spring and September into October are the better months: warm sea, working towns, no crush. The swimming season runs roughly June to October, with the sea warmest towards the end of it. Winter is mild and green and fine for cities and food, but it is not beach weather — for that, see our warm winter destinations guide or, for somewhere reliably hot in January, the Zanzibar guide.

Practicalities are straightforward: Italy, euros, Italian, driving on the right, with the main airports at Catania and Palermo. From Malta, Sicily is a short flight or a fast ferry to Pozzallo on the southeast coast, which makes it one of the most natural first trips from the islands — see also budget trips from Malta and our wider affordable European destinations list.