Sicily holiday and driving

[MrsDexterr]

Looking for advise if anyone has done a driving holiday in Sicily. I hear so much about how bad the driving is, but we are fairly used to driving abroad including in Italy. We happily drove in Naples and Amalfi coast.

We travelled by train round Sicily.. Way nicer and less stressful.

We flew to Palermo 2 nights train to cefalu then train to Taormina then train to Syracuse. All were great our favourite Ortigia in Syracuse if you like ancient history it’s incredible. Don’t need a car the cities have tiny streets would have been stressful.

@Trueloveneverdies if you get a chance, you might enjoy watching the Inspector Montalbano TV series. It’s set in Sicily, in the Baroque south east towns. Noto is very nice - I hope I haven’t put you off!

I'm in sicily at the moment. We have a car. We are based at the seaside resort of Giardini Naxos. It's just down from Taormina. We were advised not to drive in taormina so we got the bus. Very glad we did as driving would have been horrendous.
We also thought Taormina was touristy and expensive.
Yesterday we drove inland to the wonderful roman mosaics at Villa Romana Di Casalle. It took us 2 hours but it was worth it. The villa and mosaics were marvellous.
Driving was OK, although there seemed to be a lot of people in v little cars just floating along without a care in the world. They drove v slowly and wobbled between the lanes as they fancied.
Driving from catania airport was the worst bit so far. We ended up in the centre of Catania and couldn't find our way out. No signs for the motorway anywhere. The sat nav and Google maps kept dropping out. We ended up going round these tiny little streets for over an hour. Got the giggles in the end as we thought we were due to spend our entire holiday there.

I second idolikealiein's recommendation for Villa del Casale mosaics. They were magnificent.

No not at all, I appreciated the honesty!

Did a couple of driving trips to Sicily. The only place I wasn't happy was Palermo. And for 10 years I drove around Como and Milan, so fairly used to Italian driving. Noto was lovely; I adored Taormina. Not so keen on Agrigento - 19th C Italian rebuilt. Nothing original! We also visited the west coast. Eg Erice

We stayed in Giardini Naxos and agree about Taormina. Didn't like it at all.
All fancy shops with the price tags hidden and touristy restaurants. The ancient ruins were worth it though.
The beach in Giardini Naxos is a long strip, but very small in width and overlooked by the promenade. Local lads would sit on the wall ogling the women and if they saw one alone for a minute, whoosh!

We didn't feel we needed a car around there. Even walked it up to Taormina on occasion (though there is no pavement so you are basically walking in the road 😬 It's fine for a lazy week or so and much nicer than staying in Catania IMO.

I really liked Taormina - stunning views and some lovely places hidden about. Bus up to Castelmola, GodFather tour, cable car to the beach. It can be busy during the day as there are a lot of tour groups, but quieter in the evening. Ortigia is gorgeous.

And White Lotus season 2 was filmed there.

Prepare to get fatter. The pastries are bloody marvellous. God I loved Sicily. Driving was fine.

It was fine everywhere, except the road up to our mountain top villa. Unbelievable views from the house, but hair raising going up and down! Very low barriers next to massive drops. I didn’t drive, as it terrified me, I sat with my eyes shut. But the main roads and motorway equivalent was just fine.

We had a car the first time we went, flying to-from Trapani.

It was a quiet holiday, staying along the W/SW coast.
Driving was fine, but it's probably the worst sign-posted place I've ever been to.
Went on organised tours the 2nd time - much more relaxing.

Oh yes signposts - at least 20 different signs hung on the same lone post on a roundabout, often had to get OH to go round again as I (navigator) couldn't read them all in the time available as we whizzed past. Everything from the local hairdressers to the vital autostrade number/destination all mixed up together.

We’re shortly arriving in Giardini Naxos and I spotted your bus suggestion - would you mind explaining to me the bus tickets? Do we need to buy before we board etc?

Be warned that satnav doesn't always recognise that ancient streets might be too narrow even for a small car. DH is still recovering from the trauma 7 years on but sadly it didn't cure him of satnav addiction.

Hard agree about the signposts! We diligently followed the SatNav and ignored all signs in the end. My top tip would be to download the EasyPark app before you go. It took the hassle out of paying for parking and we didn’t worry about getting a parking ticket once. Super easy to use.