Sicily August 19
 

I thought I’d do a quick trip report as we’ve found not many people we know have ever visited Sicily.
My sister and husband went out to Oz to work back in 2015 and I’ve only seen her once since . She’s asked me to go to Oz many times but I can’t face the flight so this year we decided to have a family holiday in Sicily to meet up as she was coming back to the uk for a few days as well.
There were 7 of us ranging from 14 to 72 and we flew from Liverpool with easyJet. I have to say I was very impressed with them overall. Great service .

We booked a villa through solo Sicily and stayed in Caronia . It’s a beautiful place but is not a tourist area but although their is very little English spoken we got by and they really welcomed us. It was nestled on the hillside with spectacular views all around . It comprised of two building with an large joining terrace . We had 5 bedrooms (4 had sea views ) 4 bathrooms, 3 sun terraces and the infinity pool. Simply stunning but extremely pricey but you get what you pay for especially the views and privacy .

We hired a car and found the autostrada really good for the longer travelling
( we didn’t realise how big Sicily actually is) and travelled by the coastal railway to visit Cefalù on a few occasions , absolutely beautiful town and harbour and again just over €4 a ticket with stunning views all the way .


The kids climbed la Rocca , the large rock in the picture above , ( respect to them in the early morning heat ) but it was too much for me to tackle.
We also visited capo de orlando and Brolo


We ate locally and it was ridiculously cheap . €78 for 7 adults including beer and wine. Everywhere we went including the main tourist spots like Cefalù the prices were so cheap.
The food is simply amazing wherever you go and we didn’t have one bad meal. Granite , cannoli , gelato and arancini all amazing and the seafood, lasts and pizzas are simply delicious . If you love food you’d love it here . The butchers shop was also unbelievable quality but was a challenge with language so had an interesting time buying produce :d:

As a family we all agreed it was an amazing place and so many things we didn’t get to do such as Syracuse , mt etna and the aeolian islands to name a few , simply because a week wasn’t long enough. So we will be back to finish what we started but I would highly recommend Sicily to anyone and hope this may help someone thinking of going. :)

View from the villa of the aeolian islands

Thanks for reading.

That pool :inlove: a round Sicily road trip is on our list but it’s such a long list lol. Sounds great!

Some food pics :)

Fresh from the tree in the garden

Pizza takeaway snack :) €2


Fresh arancini ragu and prosciutto and mozzarella the size of your fist €2 each

Chocolate orange cannoli €2


Granite mixed berry, pistachio , orange €2 each and delicious and refreshing in the heat

Gelato limoncello ( addicted to it ) , rocher and coffee €2 each and huge

Cappuccino and chocolate croissant by the cathedral at Cefalù €3.50

We also had a local chef come to the villa to cook Sicilian dishes for us . Boy was this good but I ate it before taking photos :tongue:, one of the courses was pasts and I can’t tell you how good this was. . The dessert was Devine. ( I’ll post pics if I get them from my sis )
We had 3 courses at a cost of €210 and she cooked , served and cleaned everything .

That would be fab but you could do it by train for most of it , cheap and great views and bookable from here .
Choose your car hire carefully . We used Alamo/enterprise and it was good but we had a €1200 hold . If you land at Catania it’s often €2000 plus due to etna erupting all the time . Catania airport was closed the week before we flew because of etna . We flew into Palermo.
The driving s also beyond crazy and frightening and they don’t recognise a white line at all and just drive anywhere on the road lol. Mental :pgig:

that Arancini looks amazing, we get giant ones like those from an Italian deli near us but I bet that's even better. Picked up a hire car from Naples before, Wacky Races :d: it gets worse the further South you go I can well imagine!

Looks gorgeous, so pleased you had a great time on your family reunion 😀 . Sicily looks fantastic, we are still looking for somewhere to go in October so I think I will look into prices for Sicily. We prefer not to drive so I like the fact that it’s possible to get to see some sites by train

It all looks totally gorgeous! What a fabulous vacation! You can’t beat Italian food (especially the ice cream :D)

Oh your food! Wow! It all looks so beautiful. No wonder you want to go back!

Thank you so much for posting, Sicily is on my must do list.

Your villa looks beautiful.

Looks fabulous. Love the idea of the chef coming to the villa !