Best Of

Zoesydney, we took this trip May last year. Please see a few suggestions for restaurants that I put in the other thread:

https://forums.tauck.com/discussion/17827/a-sicilian-odyssey-2025-flights-to-sicily#latest

Regarding free time, there is not much of it on this trip.

Ortigia: We took a boat ride around the island. I thought this was great fun but the boat holds about 20 people and there is some wave action. Hubby gets sea sick but was a trooper. We also took a tour of the Jewish baths (Ancient Mikveh). I stopped into the Archimedes and DaVinci museum, which was interesting, especially for mechanically-minded people. Ortigia is a charming, relaxing part of Siracusa, and you will enjoy just walking around and enjoying the sea. If you are there the second weekend in May, you should be able to see the giant silver statue of the patron saint, Santa Lucia, brought out of storage for her holiday weekend. You will find her at the Santa Lucia alla Badia church near the Duomo.

Palermo: you will have one short afternoon after the visit to the Teatro Massimo. We found a taxi line outside the Teatro, and hired a driver to take us up to the Monreale Cathedral, about a 25 min ride up the hill. He said he would wait there an hour for us to visit the Cathedral, then bring us back to our hotel, all for 80 euro which we thought was reasonable. It was very pleasant, and the scenery and view of Palermo from above was great. The Cathedral is massive: similar to but about 5 times the size of the Palatine Chappel, included in the tour. The tombs of William I and II are there. We enjoyed the visit. The driver offered to also take us to the Sanctuary of Santa Rosalia, another famous local shrine about a half hour away, but we passed that up. ((The Rick Steves Sicily guidebook is comprehensive and tells all about these places.)

Taormina: On the last day you will have about 3 hours of free time, after the Etna excursion. I had wanted to take a taxi up to Castelmola, a tiny beautiful village about 2 miles up the mountain from Taormina, to visit a famous bar up there, but hubby declined. There are lots of activities if you are interested in hiking for views or spending time at the beach. We ended up going down to the Villa Sant’Andrea (sister property of the grand Hotel Timeo where we were staying) to enjoy the view from the bar deck. Your TD will give you a list of possible activities when you arrive.

None of the above activities require advance booking, and the TD gave us activity info sheets in each city.

If you are doing this trip during the 3rd weekend of May, try to go to the Infiorata flower festival in Noto. They make extremely detailed paintings of a particular theme along one long street, using flower petals and other plant materials. There is a different theme every year. The tickets are something like 2-3 Euro and do not need to be purchased in advance. We stayed an extra day and went there from Taormina, which was about a 2.5 hour drive, but we thought it was worth it. It would be much more convenient from Ortigia. We hired a driver, Salvatore Pavone, “Journeys Around Sicily”, who was very good and reasonably priced, and spoke good English. +39 328 6917719 jasicily@gmail.com (google "Infiorata of Noto")

Have a wonderful time! It’s a great trip.