Escorted Tours of Sicily

Sicily is the Mediterranean’s largest island, a place distinguished by a superb strategic location and great natural wealth. This combination has attracted traders and conquerors from all compass directions throughout the ages, endowing the island with a fascinating and immensely diverse history. The wonderful archaeological and cultural attractions of Sicily would suffice to make the island worth a voyage, but in conjunction with the world-famous Sicilian cuisine, the island’s fine wines and the quintessentially Italian lifestyle often described as “dolce vita”, Sicily is a place of never-ending interest.

Food is an absolutely essential ingredient in our Sicilian travel adventures. The sun drenched isle is renowned for its robust wines, succulent fruits, flavourful cheeses and abundant seafood. We’ll feast on its many gastronomic delights as we cruise around the coast.

Sicilian food derives most of its magic from the great abundance, quality and freshness of its locally sourced ingredients. The waters off the island teem with fish and seafood; the coastal plains and river valleys are filled with orchards, groves and fields of vegetables, pulses, cereals and nuts; the mountains and hillsides are covered in vines and forests; and large flocks and herds are pastured throughout. There are also considerable amounts of game and, in the more remote regions, wild boar still roam free.

This bounty is mixed together with some of the most famous culinary traditions in the Mediterranean (Byzantine, Arabic, French, Spanish, South Italian), all of which were absorbed during the periods when these peoples controlled Sicily, and together they produce a vibrant and colourful cuisine that can by turns be delicate, fiery, hearty and refined.

Characterised for much of the 20th century as the football at the toe of Italy’s boot, Sicily has been known for much longer (and more justly) as the triangular island, the three-caped island, or the Trinacria. Separated from Italy by a strait just 3.1km wide (1.9 miles) at its narrowest point, and only 140km (87 miles) from the African shore, the bulk of Sicily dominates the sea-lanes from east to west and north to south.

At 25,708 km2 (9,925.9 miles2) including dependent islands, Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, and one of the most diverse in terms of geography, flora and fauna. It is easiest to describe when divided into discrete regions:

Sicily’s landscapes offer spectacular backdrops to our journeys: sinuous river valleys, long mountain ranges and a colourful coastline. On top of all this there is Etna, one of the most famous volcanoes in Europe: a mountain so large it attracts its own weather system.

From the baroque beauty of Siracusa to the bustle of Catania and the splendour of old Palermo, we are sure you’ll find Sicily’s wonders as enticing as we do on our expert-led Sicily tours.

Although it is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the various regions of Sicily experience the same broad climate: mild, wet winters and hot, dry summers.

Catania, on the east coast, has the most hours of sunshine of any city in Europe – an average of 2492 per year, or 6.8 hours per day. The other cities and towns of Sicily are not far behind, and this dependable (and hot!) sunshine is one of the prime attractions of the island.

Sicily is an incredibly fertile island, and one of the main reasons for this is its high levels of rainfall. The mountainous regions (in particular Etna) receive the highest levels, but the cities and coastal regions are not spared their fair share. In the summer months, when rain is but a distant memory, humidity levels rise and are felt especially strongly in the cities and towns.

In general, the coastal regions of Sicily are warmer and slightly drier than the central, inland, regions, which can experience high levels of snowfall in winter.

Sicily sits at the cross-roads of the Mediterranean: a short hop from both Africa and Europe, and firmly astride the shipping-lanes that stretch from Spain to the Levant.

This location (and the great agricultural surpluses that it generated) endowed it with immense wealth in times of peace, as it participated in trade to all corners of the Mediterranean and benefited from the constant arrival and departure of long-distance merchants using the ports of Sicily as way-stations.

In times of war, however, this great accessibility worked against it, and Sicily was repeatedly fought over by external powers eager to use its location for their own strategic benefit: anyone who could control Sicily had nearly the entire coastline of the Mediterranean at their mercy, and denying that power to a sworn enemy was just as important as securing it for yourself.

This experience of boom and bust, the tread of so many foreign feet, and the influence of so many external civilizations, has endowed Sicily with a cultural heritage that is almost unparalleled in Europe.