Manchester to Noto Valley, Sicily - 10 nights in Spring
Itinerary At A Glance
10 day independent itinerary for Southeastern Sicily (the region is often referred to as the Noto Valley) staying in hilltop town Scicli
Based on flying in and out of Manchester into Catania on Sicily’s east coast, in April or May
Highlights include taking a tour up Mount Etna, strolling around Sicily’s historic hilltop towns, and seeing ancient Greek architecture at the Valley of the Temples.
Based on a couple travelling, with a focus on leisurely outdoor and cultural activities, interspersed with time to just relax and soak up the atmosphere
Honest verdict
Did I enjoy the holiday? Does the place live up to expectations? Did the itinerary work for the trip? Would I make another visit?
Unfortunately, not one of our better trips and not somewhere we would necessarily recommend or visit again. Main complaints for us were issues with the accommodation but also (controversial opinion I’m sure) we didn’t find the island landscape beautiful really; it is marred with flytipping and endless endless fields of polytunnels for tomatoes. The towns we visited were pretty in the main streets, but the outskirts aren’t.
For anyone interested in either history, or spending their holiday doing very little, they may enjoy it far more than we did but for a holiday filled with cultural activities and outdoor pursuits, I wouldn’t recommend Scicli or the Noto Valley. In hindsight, I think a better base for us in Southeastern Sicily could have been Syracuse/Ortigia island which seems more teeming with the kind of culture and outdoor activities we like.
Itinerary Details
TRAVEL MEANS
Manchester direct into Catania, with Easyjet
We hired a car for the entirety of our trip, and it would be impossible to do without it.
Scicli is a 2 hour drive from Catania airport
ACCOMMODATION
Villa Saracena, Contrada Croce, 97018 Scicli, +39 349 648 3018
I cannot recommend this accommodation - we couldn’t stay there the first night (some issue which I can’t remember) so we stayed in one of their sister accommodations. Then part way through the trip we lost all power and water for two full days. This, unfortunately, became a memorable downer on the trip as it became quite stressful not to have those basic amenities. The staff were trying hard, but really, it just felt unacceptable and sort of ruined the stay.
I think I might have taken it on the chin a bit better if the accommodation had been extremely reasonably priced, but it wasn’t - it was comparable with any luxury accommodation in any European destination - so it just felt like they had failed to match their service with the kind that would be expected for that price.
FOOD
It’s hard to have bad food in Italy, and this was certainly the case for our trip, but neither did we have food that was so outstanding I feel compelled to recommend here. If you do go, be absolutely certain you buy yourself some fresh ricotta, and eat it simply on fresh bread, topped with proscuitto and olive oil. This is sublime and you can’t replicate these flavours at home in the UK. A lasting memory of the trip and the island.
ACTIVITIES
Mount Etna 4x4 & Cable Car tour - this was a superb part of the trip, but it is a very long drive from where we stayed in Scicli, at least 2.5 hours each way. Two things to point out - one, be sure to book in advance, and two, you really do need to dress for extremely cold weather for reaching the top. Jeans and a jacket will not cut it, no matter how warm and mild it is at the base of the volcano. This may sound like an very obvious thing to say, but the tour company did not give us any instruction on this point, and while we were much more appropriately dressed than the majority of our fellow tour-goers, we were underdressed for the wickedly strong winds and snow at the summit and it impacted on our ability to enjoy it.
MTB & Sea Kayak Tour Sampieri coast - this would have been great……if my boyfriend didn’t get severely seasick about 20 minutes into the trip. Francesco, our guide, was superb about the whole thing.
Valle dei Templi (Valley of the Temples) in Agrigento - Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, the Valley of the Temples contains one of the largest archaeological sites in the Mediterranean and is one of the most extensive, representative and best preserved archaeological sites of classical Greek civilisation who were settled in Sicily and the southern part of the Italian peninsula. The Romans called the area of Sicily and the foot of the boot of Italy Magna Graecia (Latin, "Greater Greece"), since it was so densely inhabited by Greeks. This was an absolutely fantastic way to spend the day, and is humbling to wander around the magnificent and ancient structures.
DAY TRIPS & WHERE TO WANDER
Noto - One of the Baroque gems of Sicily and rebuilt from scratch after the 1693 earthquake. We spent a pleasurable half-day wandering around this town and had lunch outside on the pretty main street.
Modica - In the 15th Century, when Modica was under Spanish control, chocolate (xocolatl) was brought from the Aztec areas of South America and they still make chocolate using the ancient recipe. Like Noto, we spent a few hours just wandering around, tried the chocolate and had a coffee. I’d give it 3 out of 5 - not necessarily as awesome as so much online content makes out and I wouldn’t recommend making this your destination - better to stop off here as a way to break up a longer journey to some other place.
Ideas for another visit
Stay in Syracuse/Ortigia island
Riverwalk in Cassibile Gorge - with AirBnB experiences. Just south of Syracuse, a vast, 10 kilometre-long, 300m deep gorge has been bisected by the emerald green Cassibile River, through which a series of fresh water pools and waterfalls tumble. Spend a day hiking, clambering and (if you’re brave enough) taking a dip in the ice-cold water. There are beautiful wildflowers, butterflies and several interesting archaeological ruins here too.
See the troglodytic (cave dwelling) culture of Cava d’Ispica - If you have the time and energy, you can follow the gorge all the way to Ispica town (12km / 3-4 hours), supposedly a lovely walk in springtime.
Vendicari Nature Reserve - A mixture of salt lagoons (pantano), sand dunes, rocky coastlines, and sandy beaches, and thousands of migrating birds pass a few days here on their way to or from Africa with flamingos, herons, storks and cormorants regulars during autumn. It’s reputedly a wonderful environment for a good seaside walk and a picnic. There are no lidos or bars, so it is essential to take what you need with you – water, something to eat, swimsuit and towels. There are three entrances to the park, all off the main Noto-Pachino road. The middle entrance, signposted Torre di Vendicari, gives you the opportunity of heading north or south. Wherever you decide to enter, you will have to park you car and walk some way, though this is a generally thought of as a pleasurable experience.
Lessons Learnt for me
10 nights was much too long for us, with not enough of what we like to do to occupy us for this length of time, particularly where we stayed in Scicli - many of the activities we enjoyed were actually quite far from our base. This has taught me to start finding an itinerary of activities first, and then find accommodation to suit that, not the other way round.
Sewing projects for a Spring trip
