Sicily Holidays 2012

Image by hisks

Sicily is the beautiful and rugged sister island right off the southern coast of Italy. It is best saved for a winter or early spring/autumn visit, as the summers are quite hot and humid. With its cuisine, nightlife, beaches and mountains, you can easily plan a pleasant holiday in Sicily.

Get Outside

Sicily has five great beaches, with varying degrees of depth and clarity. Marina di Ragusa has sandy golden beaches with deep blue waters, and is great for diving. Marina di Cottone is fed by a river and sweeps out into the sea, where you can hire a glass bottom boat and enjoy the water without getting wet. San Vito lo Capo is decidedly the best beach of the whole island, encircled by mountains and spotted by trees.

If you like mountain trekking, you have your choice of four different mountains; Etna, Gole dell'Alcantara, Monte Iblei, and Madonie. Mount Etna is an active volcano, scaling over 3km into the sky. Monti Iblei is the highest peak, and you should have proper kit and a guide when scaling it.

Explore

Sicily offers much in the way of archeological sites and exploration. Here you will find Agrigento's Greek Temple Valley. Naxos was the first Greek colony on the island, and some ruins still stand. Segesta is an ancient Greek temple, complete with an amphitheater and other ruins. The Piazza Armerina has roman mosaics and is a declared world heritage site, so you can visit it easily.

Shopping

One thing you must buy while visiting Sicily is olive oil(saracena). Importation taxes in the UK can make it pretty expensive to get ahold of, but on the island it's easily a third of the price you would normally pay. Also remember to pick up one of the fruity light wines native to the region, especially Marsala and Moscato.

Eat Something

Sicily easily has one of the most unique pallates in the Mediterranean. Foods heavily feature flavors of almonds, pine nuts, jasmine, rosemary, and mint. After dinner, eat some Cassata, granita, or cannolis; each restaurant will have it's own unique spin so eat out often!

Drinking isn't as prolific as it is in the northern part of Italy here, but you can find great wine lists and unique spins on alcohol that are unique to Sicily; try the lemoncello which is distilled from lemons into a refreshing liqueur (think cool hard lemonaide) that you can find just about everywhere on a warm day.