Best Road Trip I Have Ever Done – Sicily

Who doesn’t love a great road trip? I’ve experienced some amazing road trips across Greece, Eastern Europe, East Coast USA, etc. However, the best road trip I have ever done is undoubtedly in Sicily.

Famous for being the home of Mount Etna, Europe’s tallest active volcano at 3329 meters, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and one of Italy’s 20 regions.

There are seven UNESCO World Heritage sites in Sicily. If focusing on the eastern part of the island, you can visit Mount Etna, the Necropolis of Pantalica, Villa Romana del Casale just outside Piazza Armerina, and the EIGHT towns clustered as the late baroque towns of Val de Noto in the southeast – FIVE of which we managed to visit.

Our Route:

In 5 days and 5 nights we drove roughly 500km across:

Catania – Enna – Piazza Armerina – Ragusa – Modica – Donalucata – Scicli – Noto – Ortigia – Catania

We changed accommodations every night in Enna, Modica, Scicli, Ortigia and Catania.

 

5 reasons Sicily is the best road trip I have ever done:

1- Architecture

We were quite excited about visiting Noto after reading this article on cntraveler.

Noto exceeded all our expectations. There were at least 40 churches and palaces that seemed clustered around its two main streets.

Home to many fine buildings of the early 18th century, many of which are considered to be the finest examples of Sicilian Baroque style, Noto is a place you MUST visit. Dubbed the “Stone Garden”, there are endless palaces, churches, cathedrals and monasteries you can visit.

We paid to climb the tower of one of the churches to get the picture below.

Driving down the city of Modica also left a big impression on me. With its neolithic origins, the stunning urban centres of Upper and Lower Modica were a sight to behold.

Scicli is an ancient town founded around 300 BCE situated in two valleys divided by steep ridges. It felt like we had been transported back in time as we walked around the old city surrounded by the clustered cave-dwellings in the tuff cliffs.

Piazza Armerina had some amazing cathedrals and looked beautiful from afar. It is well known for its Roman mosaics in the Villa Romana del Casale (which we did not have enough time to visit as there were too many people).

Ortigia was a beautiful charming island in Syracuse which we loved a lot. We enjoyed strolling along its little medieval lanes and taking in the island’s charm. Some buildings did look like they were falling apart while others have clearly been well-restored.

The market is definitely one to visit to see the swordfish.

I will never forget being greeted by a random local stranger who said “Ciao Bella” during my early morning run round the island. I then stopped on the seafront to do some yoga before stopping at a local cafe to get breakfast and coffee.

Experiencing Ortigia without the hustle and bustle of tourists was a breath of fresh air. Below is a picture of Piazza del Duomo at 6am. It was also free to enter the church in the early hours of the morning before all the tourists arrived.

2- Landscape

Seeing the views of Enna and the hilltop town Calascibetta from the tower of the Enna castle (Castello di Lombardia) was jaw dropping. The town sits on a high plateau overlooking the Dittaino Valley and it is no surprise that its position as the highest regional Italian capital has earned it the nickname Belvedere or Beautiful View.

As we started driving south from Enna towards Modica, I couldn’t stop smiling looking out the window at the beautiful landscape that funnily enough reminded me of the rolling hills in New Zealand.

I loved seeing the wild flowers that lined the roadsides particularly with views of the sea as we drove towards Donalucata. The picture below is of Fornace Penna near Donalucata/Scicli.

3- Food

Apart from some amazing pulpo (octopus) that we had in Donalucata at a restaurant on the beach called Retro,

one of the highlights for me was having ice cream in a brioche for breakfast in Scicli.

We also had some amazing risotto with the freshest mushrooms in Piazza Armerina.

Don’t forget to try their croissants that are filled with different creams – I enjoyed the one with pistachio filling as well as ricotta.

4- People

The people we came across were very kind. Language did not seem to be a barrier for the locals to try and communicate with us.

Thanks to my husband’s basic Italian and a helpful local, we found ourselves at this amazing viewpoint in Modica.

5- Accommodation

Breakfast the first morning in Enna was in a cave hotel. It was quaint and charming and we thoroughly enjoyed the space.

We had another beautiful cave accommodation in Modica. Casa degli Avi within the Murika Museum is a project aimed at the ethnographic preservation of the ancient dwelling, recovery and enhancement of ancient medieval spaces. The picture below is of the living room next to our room.

The rock features, the cement tiles, the local furnishings and recent restoration really made it a special experience.

Other comments / My impressions:

Drivers in Sicily took some getting used to. Our car was rammed into as it was parked on the side of the street – take full insurance coverage when renting a car in Sicily is the lesson we have learnt.

Where I really wanted to go instead of Enna was Gagliano Castelferrato, but we didn’t quite make it there as I didn’t know this was the place I actually wanted to go to.

I’ve been told that Taormina is excellent, but we didn’t have time to go north of Catania.

Catania surprisingly blew us away – what a gorgeous city. I would certainly come back for shopping.
The second largest city in Sicily after Palermo, its old town is one of the biggest examples of baroque architecture in Italy and is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

It was also the first time that we took one of these tourist trains around a city (for just EUR 5 per person) and it was a great experience. Flying out of Catania, we were in awe seeing the majestic Mount Etna in the distance.

I really wanted to stop at Caltagirone but we didn’t have enough time to make that stop as we had to check into our AirBnB in Modica by a certain time. The check in hours at most of the places in Sicily were quite strict.

Ragusa did not blow me away. I found it fairly disappointing.

I was told that Scicli at night is a lot of fun – locals young and old are out till past 1am. Had we had someone to help us out with childcare, I would have loved to witness that.

I did some clothes shopping in Ortigia – it is definitely a good place to shop if you have cash to spare for some excellent Italian clothing.

We also enjoyed some beach time in Donalucata.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our brief 5 days in southeastern Sicily. I will certainly return to explore the west part of the island soon.

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