Sicily tours, Sicily holidays, Etna tour by SicilyLife

(Pick up from Palermo port)

Today we will head out of Palermo to discuss the hinterland area and some of the most beautiful towns and villages not to mention some amazing stories. There are places in the countryside of Palermo sadly famous for events involving the Mafia and for having been the home of many Mafia bosses now locked-up in prison. This tour allows you to visit some of these sites and to admire them for their monuments and for their natural beauty. We will first drive from your port in direction of the little village of Monreale, driving through a wonderful road overlooking the "Conca D'Oro"

On the northern coast, 75 kilometers east of Palermo, from which it is about forty-five minutes by car, a bit longer on an express train, Cefalù (with the accent on the last syllable) is a medieval town built on the site of an ancient Sicanian and Greek settlement. In fact, its name derives from the Greek word for a cape; the ancient city was called Cephaloedion. Except for a few archeological items in the local museum, all that remains of these ancient cultures today is a small structure (the Temple of Diana) on the mountain overlooking the town. This simple enclosure is said to be one of the oldest structures still standing in Sicily. Though the fortress itself crumbled long ago, the battlements atop the mountain were built during the Norman rule of the island in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

(Pick up from Palermo port)

Driving to western part of Sicily from Palermo, our first stop will be at the magnificent Temple of Segesta. It was built by the Elimian, an old population whose origins maybe are Turkish but were later colonised by the Greeks to become one of the most important Greek colonies in the west side of Sicily. It is the first Greek Temple built in Doric style. The Temple has 36 columns, still intact despite the several earthquakes which effected this area in the history. We also visit the theatre, which is a typical example of the Greek semi circular theatre style.
We then move on to the medieval town of Erice, situated 880 metres above the sea level and

(Pick up from Palermo port)

Located on a plateau overlooking Sicily's southern coast, Agrigento was founded as Akragas around 582 BC by a group of colonists from Gela, who themselves were the immediate descendants of Greeks from Rhodes and Crete. The area was inhabited much earlier; a female skull (that of the "girl of Mandrascava") found near Cannatello is half a million years old. The medieval city of Agrigento is not without a certain charm. High in the historical center of the city, the Romanesque Gothic cathedral, built during the fourteenth century still displays some of its medieval character, as does the

(Pick up from Palermo port)

Piazza Armerina Set on a plateau almost 700 meters above sea level about 35 kilometers from Enna and a bit nearer Caltagirone, the city of Piazza Armerina is not without charm. Founded during the Norman era, its historical quarter has some beautiful churches, including a Baroque cathedral, as well as a well-preserved fortress (Spinelli Castle), but most visitors come here to see the Roman Villa, with its magnificent mosaics. Located a few kilometers outside town, the villa is one of the largest Roman