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Boutique hotels in Sicily

Holidays in Sicily, Italy

Sicily Overview

Italy

Countryside
Vineyards, villages, volcanoes
Country life
Exotic architecture, passionate people

Bustling cities, miles of coastline, and world-class wining and dining – this Southern Italian island showcases Med living at its most vibrant.

Drive around and you’ll be soothed by palm trees and scented orange groves one minute, and exhilarated by Greek and Arabic architecture the next – this is an island that’s seen Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, French, Spanish, Austrian and British all stick their oars in. Dominated by Mount Etna, Europe’s largest active volcano, the east is the most built-up swathe of Sicily and where you’ll find Taormina, the isle’s original resort, and the sprawling city of Catania. Head west and explore an undeveloped landscape of sandy beaches and pretty fishing villages, and experience soul-uplifting rural seclusion.

Click here to see our separate guide to Sicily’s Aeolian Islands.

Suitably Sicily

Sicilians are famously proud and headstrong, and Palermo’s Addiopizzo movement bears all the hallmarks of this. Set up by a group of students with the aim of promoting businesses who refuse to pay taxes – or ‘pizzo’ – to the Mafia, it allows visitors to the city to identify which cafés, restaurants and shops to spend their cash in, safe in the knowledge they won’t be funding organised crime. For more information, visit www.addiopizzo.org.

Local knowledge

Taxis
Cabs are cheap and easy to find in Palermo and the island’s major resorts, but you’re better off hiring a car if you plan to do any longer journeys around the island.

Tipping culture
A service charge is often added to restaurant bills, but an additional tip of 10 per cent is usual for good service.

Siesta and Fiesta
Banks and most shops close between noon and 4pm, and outside the big cities you’re unlikely to find anything open during this period. Bars and restaurants stay open late, so do as the locals do and head out to eat around 10pm. Passeggiata lasts long into the night…

Packing tips
Bring an extra bag to fill with all the jars of spices, and packets of dried tomatoes and chillis you’ll pick up at Palermo’s street markets. And bring some anti-nausea tablets – those inland mountain roads can induce car-sickness in the most iron-stomached of travellers.

Recommended reads
Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s classic novel The Leopard is the definitive Sicilian novel, chronicling the slow decline of a noble family over half a century – it’s also a great Visconti movie with Burt Lancaster and Sophia Loren. Want to know more about that secretive world of the Sicilian mafia? Midnight in Sicily by Peter Robb and Boss of Bosses by Clare Longrigg are essential reads. If it’s guiltier pleasures you seek, then Mario Puzo’s The Godfather and The Sicilian both overflow with descriptions of the island’s landscape and culture.

Cuisine
Feast on pasta and risotto, freshly baked focaccia and tasty seafood, such as grilled swordfish or stuffed squid – all in one sitting. The Italians are suckers for four courses when they’re dining out, so don stretchy waistbands if you plan to keep up. As for the wealth of drinkables, red-wine lovers will revel in the abundance of this inexpensive ruby-coloured tipple. This is also the land of the sweet fortified wine, Marsala, named after the city on the west coast from where it originates.

Currency
Euro (€).

Time zone
GMT +1.

Dialling codes
Country code for Italy: 39. Palermo: 091; Catania: 095; Siracusa: 0931.

Do go/don't go
It’s textbook lovely throughout the year, although the beginning and the end of the summer months are ideal as the sun isn’t too scalding and the beaches less crowded. August is best avoided, as this is when the mainland Italians descend in their droves.

Don't go home without

Tasting Marsala wine straight from the casks in its birthplace; eating linguine frutti di mare at a street restaurant in Taormina while Mount Etna smoulders in the background; visiting the duomo in Ortygia, a baroque beauty that manages to incorporate elements of both the Roman and Greek temples that stood there before it.