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QUICK GUIDE | Sicily - 5 Girls, 5 Days!

To be honest, I think five days in Sicily is not even close to enough time to really take in the culture, hidden vessels, dining, sites and activities that Sicily has to offer. I would say closer to ten days is a better amount of time. Sadly, five days is all we were able to spend in this beautiful land and after our disastrous start to the 'Italy 2015' trip last year (where we ended up missing our outgoing flight, spending £100 on a last minute flight to Rome and travelling for about nine hours on the train – essentially missing a whole day), we decided to cut no corners when it came to our day to day activities and explorations this time around in Sicily..


We stayed in the most gorgeous house in Gravina, Catania which we found on AirBnb for a really good price and rented a hire car for the duration of our stay. At first I was a little (or more than a little) apprehensive about having to hire a car whilst in Sicily (for reasons I won't bore you with) but I am happy that we opted in as there was a LOT of daily driving involved. I would suggest renting a car if you intend to do a lot of things in and around Sicily (particularly around Catania/Messina) during your stay as the cab prices were not as cheap as other parts of Italy or Sicily.


We had a few 'here and there' ideas about what we wanted to do when we arrived in Sicily but had not booked anything ahead of flying and left that exciting part for when we landed. We also asked our very generous hosts Clauda and Silvio – a newly wed couple who just gave birth to a baby boy called Nico – if they had any suggestions for places to eat, drink, dance, explore, etc. Silvio was quite the travel expert and told us all about his world travels in the navy and his other Sicilian homes that he owned and rented out on AirBnb. After a little home research and pointers from Silvio, our itinerary was set and our activities panned out as follows:


Villaggio La Playa Beach

Catania is such a lovely part of Sicily which I vow to re-visit one day, maybe even to the same house since the hospitality and accommodation was so lovely. From the house I think it took about fifteen-twenty minutes to drive to the beach. We stopped at one of the beach-front restaurants for a spot of brunch (as we skipped breakfast taking too long to get ready, as five girls do).. Most of us had pizza, the rest pasta, with a little wine and a fizzy drink on the side. Once we hit the beach, it literally was a day full of sun bathing, reading, ball-playing in the sea, dancing to the Beats By Dre Pill (link below), ice cream eating and wine drinking – as you do at the beach ;) Deck chairs were quite a good price at about six euros (or roughly £4.50) each and we also each got a cheeky back, neck & shoulders massage for about the same price – which was amazing might I add!


I also shot a quick lookbook video which is now up on YouTube.


Lookbook Video


Catania 2016

Ami Getting That Good Massage!

Cover Your Eyes Kids!

Young, Wild, Free.

Body Rafting at Alcantara Gorge

I won't go into the full details again about what happened out there in those waters, for the full story please click here. I will however, say that the best parts of this experience were actually really challenging and in the right company, body rafting can be really really fun!


For anyone who doesn't know what body rafting is, imaging paddling gently down a soft tide in a paddle boat in very cold water, then throw in a body suit, faster rapids and lose the boat! You literally use your body to float and drift down stream whilst trying to avoid dipping under or crashing into people/rocks. Of course, in order to be able to float down stream, we had to start at the bottom and make our way to the top of the natural icy gorge.. Unfortunately, we only made it about half way up due to unforseen circumstances but we were still quite proud to have made it as far as we did.



Cable Carts & Exploring Mount Etna

Mount Etna is probably the next thing I was looking forward to, after body rafting. I had heard and seen so much about it before we went to Sicily so it was nice to put a name to the face – or volcano in this case..?


Mount Etna is the tallest active volcano in Europe and although the temperature when we visited (in July 2016) was over 35°C, the top of Mount Etna can get as cold as -5°C during this season! As you can see from the images, we were not appropriately dressed for this kind of cold and actually, none of us had packed any “cold worthy” clothes! I suppose if we had planned better before packing, we could have brought some warmer clothes so that we could climb to the top but hey, that's what the cable carts were for!


There were lots of viewing points along the drive up to the part of Mount Etna where you can stop for refreshments, drinks and souvenirs. We probably stayed at these viewing points almost as long as we stayed near the half way point – I mean, how can you not? Such beautiful, breathtaking views that no photo could really do justice, but I tried.


The cable carts were quite fun and you can decide whether or not you would like to go half way up or right to the top before boarding. Again, as we were not dressed appropriately, we decided it would be best to only go half way, take some more photos, and then circle back. The views from the cable carts were awesome, it's just such a shame the cart windows were so dirty as it made it pretty hard to take a decent shot of everything outside of our cart. And then, just after we thought we had faced enough trauma from the day before, our cart came to an abrupt stop, hundreds of feet up in the air... We sat there, trying not to move a muscle for what felt like an hour but was probably only fifteen minutes – still a long time to be stranded in the air with no way to get down without plunging to the ground like a teddy out of a window.. Then the wind started blowing and we felt the cart swaying.. left.. right.. left.. right.. like a little paddle boat on a choppy sea. We saw a couple of people hiking below us at one point and debaited shouting to see if they could alert someone back at the boarding stations, but by the time we came to a decision on whether to shout for help or not, they had already walked further than the point where they would still be able to hear us. Long story short, we didn't catapult to the ground as we all envisioned. The cart randomly started squeaking before continuing along the cables to the half way point where we had to get out and re-queue to come back, but I do think they need to sort this issue out as it actually happened again on the way back! At this point we were a little fed up and where all dreaming of the moment we could safely touch our feet on the ground below – we were less panicky this time as we came to realise that this just.. happens.. every twenty minutes or so. A little sign inside of the carts to explain that from time to time it will stop 'but don't be alarmed' or even a help button would have been greatly appreciated and probably would have eased our panic in that moment..


After safely touching down, we made our way to the gift shop and bought souvenirs, sweets, snacks, gifts and sampled the most A-MA-ZING honeys, jams and marmalades I have ever tasted in my life! I'm all about the strawberry jam and was not at all a marmalade person until the moment I sampled all of those amazing flavours! Come to think of it, I kind of regret not buying a jar or two as it was also home made and I'm sure my mum would have loved a little slither of jam on a slice of warm toast!

Sunny Mount Etna

Sunny Mount Etna

"I Can't Wait to Get Back on the Road Again.."

Views of Mount Etna

Cable Carts

Myself & Chereece

Shopping in Taormina

Ahh Taormina. A Great place to shop & eat. We found the most random and amazing shops from make-up stores like Kiko, to handmade jewellery stalls, to model village shops, to restaurants, to mini art galleries and art stalls – you name it! There was so much to do along that one strip in Taormina and of course, we had to sample the Best Gelato in Sicily at C&G dessert parlour. The ice creams and sweet desserts were to die for and so full of flavour and calories (just as well we spent pretty much the whole trip walking off the excessive calories we took in).


Although we didn't stop to eat a proper meal in Taormina, we did enjoy some great live music at Caffé Wunderbar which was extremely entertaining and inviting. Caffé Wunderbar really know how to lure in a crowd, and keep them there!


Taormina!

Make-up Gallore!

Taormina!

Taormina!

Taormina!

Markets

I really do regret not writing down my make-shift “secret” recipe from when I whipped up a pretty awesome Sicilian Salsa, which I made with fresh ingredients we bought from the market on out last proper afternoon in Sicily, cos that sh*t was THE BOMB.COM!


The markets and fruit & veg stalls in Gravina, Catania are great! The freshest fruit and veg you will taste in your life and at such a good price. Between the five of us, we bought about four or five bags of fruit, veggies and other fresh foods from the market and chipped in about four euros each – bargain! We were also allowed to sample pretty much all of the fruit in the shop – even after politely declining any more fruit as I was fed so much of it I was practically bloating! The shop keeper and his son (like many Catanian residents) spoke next to no English and I think they used this to their advantage by motioning that they did not understand when we said or motioned “no more thank you” and continued feeding us more food! We also got to sample some of their freshly mulled wine – which I didn't buy only because I am not a red wine kind of gal – rosé or white wine will do me nicely, but not red.


I would strongly recommend visiting the markets in Sicily if you are not staying at a self catering hotel or apartment – preferably at the very beginning of your trip and not at the end like we did which resulted in having to throw away a good portion of our lovely fresh food. We did try to leave some for our hosts but to be honest their fridge was pretty full and I'm not sure how much of it they could have eaten between the two of them. The reason I suggest shopping at the food markets is because they are a lot cheaper than the big supermarkets and corner shops and of course, it's a lot cheaper to make your own food from fresh ingredients than to eat out every day/meal. Don't get me wrong, we ate out every night (except one night where we ordered in with the help of Silvio), but it was nice to wake up a couple of mornings to a big juicy fruit platter or to sit down to a lovely fresh platter of meats, breads, spreads and fruits with glass of wine for lunch.


So there we have it, all the main things we did to fill our five days in Sicily this year.

Mmm, Breakfast!

Market Stop

Market Stop

Sati's Weird Cucumber..

Market Stop

 

Have you recently been to Sicily? What did you get up to and is there anything else you would recommend for my next trip here? Let me know down below! ↓ ↓

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