Multi-Day Tours in Sicily

Sicily is too big for a long weekend and too varied for one base, so a week here is a circuit. Palermo to Taormina is 270 km and about three and a half hours; Agrigento to Catania is 170 km, two hours. Three stories run through any route. Arab-Norman Sicily is Palermo, Monreale and Cefalù, with gold mosaics. Greek Sicily is Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, the unfinished Doric temple at Segesta, Syracuse and the theatre at Taormina. The south-east is the baroque that rose after the earthquake of 1693: Noto, Modica, Ragusa.

Every multi-day route here starts from Palermo. The long ones are self-drive: five days to Catania, seven days through the west (Trapani, Marsala, Erice, Segesta, the island of Favignana), and eleven days round the island, with nights in Taormina, Syracuse, Noto and Agrigento. You get a small manual car, hotels, breakfast and unlimited mileage, and you plan each day from suggestions. One week is private: a driver, local guides in Palermo and at the Valley of the Temples, a cooking class in Taormina, ending in Catania. There is also a four-day city stay in Palermo.

Practical. May, June and late September are the comfortable months for a circuit. In July and August the coast reaches about 31C by afternoon, and Agrigento's temples give little shade. Hotels are four-star with breakfast; other meals and city tax are extra. Distances matter more than the map suggests, so do not stack two long drives on consecutive days. On these routes, cancelling costs half the price from twenty days before departure.