ten nights, one coach, three hotels, no repacking every morning
An Escorted Sicily Vacation Package Built On Three Bases And One Coach
An escorted sicily vacation package for about forty people, ten nights, three hotels and a single coach that stays with the group from the first pickup to the last drop.
Ten nights, from $2,760 per person.
Nothing here counts you and nothing here follows you off the page. One word can be written down, and only the word yes, so this strip stops coming back. What that means in full.
The coach is the trip. One vehicle, one driver, ten nights, and it never leaves the group: it takes you off the tarmac at Palermo on day one and it is still there on the last morning at Catania. There is no internal flight, no ferry, no hotel-to-hotel taxi. That single fact decides everything else about how this escorted sicily vacation package is put together, including the three bases, which exist so that nobody repacks a suitcase more than twice in ten nights.
Those bases are Palermo for four nights, Agrigento for three and Taormina for three. The distances between them are not large on paper. Palermo to Agrigento is about 80 miles and takes a little over two hours because the road climbs inland through Corleone country rather than running along the coast. Agrigento to Taormina is longer, about 160 miles, and that is a full driving day broken by Piazza Armerina in the middle of it. Everything else is a day loop out and back, which is the whole point of staying put.
What the brochures round off is the ground underneath you. Sicily is not a museum with handrails. The Valley of the Temples is a mile and a half of open path on dry stone with almost no shade, Etna's upper stations are loose black gravel that slides under a smooth sole, and Taormina's old center is stairs from end to end. Nobody carries you up. A guide will slow the pace and will wait, but the walking is real.
- What size this is
- About forty seats on a full-size coach, which pays for a professional driver, a licensed local guide at each archaeological site and a hotel dining room that can seat everyone at once, and which means the day runs to a printed clock rather than to a conversation.
- What is actually included
- Ten nights in three mid-range hotels with private bathrooms and breakfast; all coach transport on the island including airport pickups on the published arrival day; a tour manager for the full ten nights; local licensed guides at Monreale, Segesta, Agrigento, Piazza Armerina and Siracusa; site admissions at those five; seven dinners at the hotels; one lunch on the salt road; luggage handling at each of the three bases.
- Who else is on it
- Thirty-six to forty-four people, one coach, one tour manager, and the same faces at breakfast for ten mornings; that buys a real crew and a real kitchen, and it costs you improvisation, because forty people cannot decide anything at short notice and the coach leaves at the printed minute whether or not you are on it.
- What it does not include
- International and domestic flights; three dinners in Palermo and Taormina left free on purpose; all lunches except the one on the salt road; drinks with any meal; the Etna cable car and jeep segment at roughly 65 euro; boat time in the Siracusa sea caves at roughly 25 euro; tips for the driver, tour manager and site guides; city tourist taxes payable at each hotel desk in cash, roughly 2 to 4 euro per person per night; anything of a personal nature.
- Who should not book this
- Anyone who cannot stand for forty minutes or walk a mile on uneven volcanic rock and worn temple stone, because four of the ten days are exactly that; anyone who wants to change the route once it is running, since it was fixed before you booked; anyone who needs a room to themselves without paying the single figure; and anyone who dislikes eating dinner at a long table with the same thirty-nine people.
What Forty Seats Buy, And What They Take Away
Forty is the number at which a tour stops being informal. It pays for a driver who does nothing but drive, a tour manager who does nothing but manage, and a hotel that will hold a dining room for one group at eight o'clock. At the archaeological parks it pays for a licensed local guide, which is not a courtesy: Agrigento, Segesta, Siracusa and the Villa Romana all require one for a group of that size, and the fee is already in your price.
It also removes every possibility of improvising. Forty people cannot agree on lunch, so lunch is not agreed on: the coach stops where a coach can park, and you have an hour. If two people are late back, the other thirty-eight sit and wait, which is why the tour manager reads the departure time out loud twice and then departs. Seats rotate one row forward each morning so the same four people do not spend ten days over the wheel arch.
The compensation is that nothing is your problem. Luggage moves from coach hold to room door at all three bases. Admissions are pre-booked, which at Agrigento in July is the difference between walking in and standing in a line in full sun. You are never once asked to find a station, read a timetable or explain in Italian where you want to go.
from $2,760per person
- Where it comes from
- The lowest figure this office has actually booked this trip at inside the last twelve months.
- Read as
- Two people sharing one room, unless the rows above this say otherwise for your case.
- What lifts it
- A smaller party than the size this trip is filed under, a better grade of room, a peak week, and a late decision.
- When it stops moving
- When an operator puts its own name under it in writing. Until then treat it as the floor of a range this office has seen.
Whatever you settle is settled with that operator, on whatever system it runs. No part of it passes through this office and no card is ever seen here.
The Months This Works, And The Two That Punish You
Sicily's high summer is not a matter of taste, it is a matter of physical fact. Inland Agrigento and the Piazza Armerina plain sit above 95F through most of July and August, the temple path has no cover, and afternoons are moved or cut short when the tour manager judges it necessary. Departures still run, and people still enjoy them, but you should book July knowing exactly what you are buying.
The shoulder months are the honest recommendation, and the spring ones are better than the autumn ones because the interior is still green rather than burned brown.
- April
- Wildflowers across the Segesta hillside, 65 to 72F, some rain, cool evenings in Taormina
- May and early June
- The best walking conditions of the year, 72 to 82F, long light, Etna's upper road usually clear of snow
- July and August
- 95F and above inland, sites shadeless, afternoon programs shortened, coach air conditioning working hard
- Late September
- Sea still warm, 78 to 85F, heavy grape harvest traffic on the inland roads
- October
- 68 to 76F, the quietest sites of the year, first real rain and occasional closure of Etna's upper section
- November to March
- No departures on this itinerary
What Is Fixed The Day You Confirm, And What Is Not
Confirmation locks the route, the hotels and the seat. It does not lock your flights, because you buy those yourself and we do not touch them. Read the room type carefully at this stage: twin means two separate beds and in older Palermo buildings a double is genuinely a double, not a king, and rooms in the Taormina base vary in size floor to floor because the building was not built as a hotel.
- Deposit$400 per person holds a seat on a named departure. The three hotels are named to you in writing at this point, not before
- Six weeks outBalance due. This is when the single supplement locks, and when a room-share request either has a match or converts to the single figure
- Two weeks outFinal documents: the printed daily clock, hotel addresses, the tour manager's mobile number and the pickup window at each airport
- On the dayThe coach meets published arrival-day flights only. Arrive a day early and you make your own way to the Palermo hotel, which is a fixed-price airport transfer of roughly 45 euro
Ask Before You Commit, Not After
Tell us your flight times, your walking limit and whether you want a room to yourself, and a written figure comes back in two to four working days with the three hotels named. Messages are read the same working day. This office books the trip and other companies drive, house and guide it, and we do not deal with insurance, visas or passports at any point.