Sicily

Plan the calendar around the heat and around Ferragosto (15 August), when many family-run businesses close for up to a fortnight and locals travel — a national slowdown, not a Sicily quirk, but one to design around.

Sicily is big — roughly seven times Mallorca — and its railways are slow and patchy: the Palermo–Catania line is still mostly single track at 80–90 km/h, so a car or bus beats the train and the interior is barely served at all. A car is how you actually see the island, with two cautions. First, the ZTL limited-traffic zones in the historic centres of Palermo, Catania and Siracusa’s Ortigia: drive in without a permit and automatic cameras issue a fine that reaches your rental company — and you — months later. Second, aggressive local driving and hard city parking. The A19 Palermo–Catania motorway is free; the A18 and A20 around Messina are tolled.

Etna is Europe’s most active volcano, a UNESCO site, and about 3,400 metres tall — a height that literally changes with each eruption. It is erupting now: a flank eruption began on 1 January 2026, and this is normal rather than exceptional. Two practical consequences follow. Visiting it means riding the Funivia dell’Etna cable car up from Rifugio Sapienza (from around €50) and continuing by 4×4 with a guide; the summit craters can only be reached legally with an authorised volcanological guide, not on your own. And ash closes Catania airport at short notice — it happened repeatedly in 2024–25 — so build slack into flights in and out of Catania and watch the INGV bulletins.

The set pieces are extraordinary, and the major state sites share a tidy price — €14 full, €7 reduced for the big ones. The Valley of the Temples at Agrigento is one of the great Greek sites anywhere — go early or at the summer night openings (to around midnight, June–September) to dodge the heat. The Val di Noto — Noto, Ragusa Ibla, Modica, Scicli — is a cluster of golden late-Baroque towns rebuilt after a 1693 earthquake, their churches mostly free to wander. Siracusa pairs the Neapolis archaeological park (the Greek theatre and the Ear of Dionysius) with the island town of Ortigia; Palermo layers Arab-Norman mosaics — the Cappella Palatina, and Monreale’s golden cathedral nearby — over three of the Mediterranean’s great street markets; and Villa Romana del Casale holds the finest Roman mosaics still in situ, the famous “bikini girls” among them.

One warning: Taormina, with its Greek theatre framing Etna, has become the island’s priciest and most crowded spot since The White Lotus filmed there in 2022 — its San Domenico Palace hotel now runs from around $1,300 a night — beautiful, but the least “value” corner of an otherwise cheap island. For an add-on, the Aeolian Islands — Stromboli’s near-continuous eruptions, Lipari, Vulcano — are a separate ferry trip from Milazzo (where Stromboli’s summit is closed, but the night boats to watch the lava run regardless).

The Arabs brought citrus, sugar and the sweet-sour profile; the Greeks olives and almonds; the Spanish chocolate and tomatoes — which is why the island tastes unlike the mainland. The street-food canon is arancini, cannoli, granita with a brioche for breakfast, and in Palermo the market stalls of Ballarò and Vucciria, and it’s genuinely cheap — a cappuccino under €2, a full meal around €13. The wines are their own world too: Etna DOC off the volcano’s slopes, Nero d’Avola, and Marsala.

Sicily is Schengen and eurozone. Italian is the language and Sicilian is a distinct language of its own; English is patchier here than in northern Italy or Spain, so a few Italian phrases go a long way outside tourist venues. Tap water is drinkable but bottled is the table norm, and the pace is relaxed — afternoon closures and late dining. On borders: the EU’s biometric Entry/Exit System is now rolling out, so expect fingerprint-and-photo checks on arrival, but the separate ETIAS authorisation is not yet required — it’s due in 2027, so it doesn’t apply to a 2026 trip.