Traveling to Sicily for a week with bf in July. Plan is to stay in Catania and checking out some easy to reach places like Taormina, Siracusa and Noto by train. Would appreciate any tips you can give me.
Sicily
Traveling to Sicily for a week with bf in July. Plan is to stay in Catania and checking out some easy to reach places like Taormina, Siracusa and Noto by train. Would appreciate any tips you can give me.
Any interest in Agrigento/Valle dei Templi?
I'm in Sicily now. 2 nights in Syracuse, and a night in Catania.
I've heard Catania is a bit of a shit hole. A week there would be limiting imo.
In Syracuse now and it's beautiful. You'd definitely wanna spend at least a night here. The evening is amazing, and you definitely will want to soak up the night time ambience. Also there's plays being shown at the Greek theatre (Prometheus is showing i think).
Tomorrow we'll be getting train to Noto, then cycling back to Syracuse, stopping off at beaches, towns, kino spots along the way.
Catania should be your hub for Mt Etna. Look into the narrow gauge railway which circles the volcano, and where you can stop off at random towns on the way. Then up your game and do a full hike.
You may also want to consider getting a nice villa with a pool in some random place, or to do some glamping near the coast.
Imo, find 2 or 3 hubs, which you go out from as opposed to daytripping from Catania and chopping off all your evening experiences elsewhere.
The south of Italy as a whole can be a bit dilapidated but that's part of its charm. I'd recommend the same as
as in rent a car or something and split the trip. When I was there we spent a few nights in Taormina then drove along Messina to a resort near Palermo. If you can't do that then yeah take daytrips I guess. Check out Isola Bella near Taormina. Eat arancine, find out when the markets are and try out all the street food. Take a daytrip to Etna. That stuff
Update:
Catania isn't so bad tbh.
> Fish market is cool, lots of restaurants around serving fresh seafood.
>La Pentolaccia restaurant was priced fairly and was a beautiful setting. Nicely portioned starter of Sicilian snacks, 2 pastas with seafood, a litre of wine and a litre of wine came to 45euros.
>There's a cafe in the port which gives you a cool view (don't worry about walking through official looking gates). Was a nice way to round off the trip before getting train to airport
>Look for the bar "BarNaut" there's a whole section here near the train tracks which has a great vibe in evening.
>Lots of Erasmus student clunge on Via Teatro Massimo. One bar had a few pool tables and karaoke and had a great vibe
>There's a restaurant with a cave and river underneath you can sit in which looked kino and gets good reviews
>Bar "Rocket" was cool and stank of weed. Seemed LGBTish if that's your thing.
Let us know how you go
You should aim to pay maximum €5 for a
Catania is the fish market (one street) and another street. Two streets that aren’t covered in literal shit. The rest is genuinely ugly and depressing. If you’re into LGBT/uni scenes then Palermo beats it as well.
>45 euros for dinner
Had dinner everyday in Palermo, wine and pasta dishes for two. Each pasta plate was 3.5, a meat dish was 4.5 and a litre of wine was 5-7 depending on what you got.
OP DO NOT STAY CATANIA
(Mt. Etna is beautiful though)
>Catania is the fish market (one street) and another street. Two streets that aren’t covered in literal shit. The rest is genuinely ugly and depressing.
Defo agree. Outside the centre, it's pretty grim. I think an evening was definintely enough to walk away with a positive impression. It's a decent city to have final drinks/meal in before fucking off to the airport. This of course stretches to 2 nights if you're doing Etna.
>Had dinner everyday in Palermo, wine and pasta dishes for two. Each pasta plate was 3.5, a meat dish was 4.5 and a litre of wine was 5-7 depending on what you got.
When was this? Inflation seems to have hit like a motherfucker. I was reading reviews with prices like this before Covid. Now, everywhere seems expensive. I seriously doubt there could be such a price gap between the 2 cities.
A night in Catania is enough and enjoyable. Anything more is a waste imo as the rest of Sicily is much more beautiful. Two if you’re seeing Etna.
I went end of 2021, so was post covid lockdowns but still had to present vax passes. I think the quarantine on arrival had just stopped being in effect. I might have got lucky with where we ate, it was a small family run place that only served a few pasta dishes daily. It was right on the main strip though, 5 mins walk from where the more tourist trap restaurants were. There’s the main Street with the church, and a street that runs perpendicular to it. The church street has the best food and prices in my experience. The perpendicular street has lots of expensive tourist traps. The place I went was opposite a kind of modern cannoli shop, which was also very nice.
>I might have got lucky with where we ate
I'd say so, those prices are a steal, but I guess it's not unreasonable to find them in places such as a tavola calda.
t. from Palermo
Inflation hit Italy like a truck (but where it hasn't?) and Amerilard tourists flooding the country which means there's always someone paying said prices
Actually very helpful info, thank you anon!
What about this advice though?
very useful, but we already have been doing all that since we first went to Rome
You'll have a great time. Sicily is very gay friendly.
Catania is a shithole. Taormina is better.
Check out the Aeolian archipelago.
Remeber to talk with your hands and really pronounce you "oh" sounds at the end of every word. It is very acceptable to exclaim "MAMA MIA" in response to most people's anecdotes and opinions. Always tell people your preferred wine is one from the local region, and only ever drink red wine. If you want to pick up any women, tell them your noona taught you to cook and always say "may she rest in peace" whenever you mention her name and then to the sign off the cross motion while saying it.
LGBT rights are observed in Sicily you shouldn't worry about that
I have a tip for you beutiful. I kiss ur bobs
bobs very big am kiss your bobs dear
Post feets sweaty
I spent a week in Catania and it’s a shithole. Go to Palermo instead, the island is small enough that you can get anywhere from there.
bump
Palermo is also a shithole though kek. People in Catania were based as can be though.
tits or gtfo
OP here, sorry about the misunderstanding, we are not gay, I am in fact a woman.
Please not lie my sweat
check out their flag
Catania itself is uninteresting but the surroundings are very good. Apart from Taormina/Siracusa I recommend
>Aci Trezza/Aci castello
Small town with a medieval castle you can visit and bathe right under, from Aci Trezza you can take a boat and spend the day sunbathing at the Cyclops Rocks, the last piece of land before the open sea
>Plemmirio natural reserve
A stunning and less known natural reserve, there are several accesses, just pick one and go down the paths to the sea. It's the southernmost point of the island, you can see Africa on a clear day from there
>Fiumefreddo
Pebble beach. The water is immediately deep as fuck as soon as you take five steps from the water line. You can sit on the edge of a literal abyss. I found little pebbles in my stuff for years after going there
>Hiking up Mount Etna
Aka motherfucking active volcano. If you don't want to hire a local guide for a tour (there are various lengths and difficulties, renting the proper equipment you can even be taken to the caldera and glance at one of the craters - Etna is a stratovolcano and has several different mouths that open from time to time) you can just walk through the woods at the base up to the Schiena dell'Asino ledge where you can take a good look at the tip of the mountain above and the dry lava bed below (Valle del Bove). Bring sturdy shoes in all cases, cannot stress this enough. Volcano rock is sharp as fuck, my buddy had to use his shoelaces to tie together the pieces of his shoes.
Thank you very much, excellent suggestions! We were wondering how to go about visiting Etna, all the info about it is pretty convoluted. My knees are kinda shitty so I can't really do a proper hike but I also don't want to spend an insane amount of money on going there. At the same time, we don't want to miss out on the opportunity to see and be on an actual volcano for the first time in our lives. Any more tips on how to go about this would be greatly appreciated!
Schiena dell'Asino is trail n.704 you drive up to Zafferana Etnea (a neat little town that was once destroyed by lava) then find the parking space and go up the mountain. First bit in the woods is pretty steep but after that it's all open barren volcano land. Bring a hat and some water, it's a 2 hour hike one way and the volcano is warm even in winter (no shit). I could do it no problem and I'm not very fit so I'm sure you can too.
This is what you see once you're up where I told you. Best view of the mountain top and the valley below.