Sicily has a great thigh to be an island containing all the types of attractions for different tours: archaeological sites, natural reserves, natural regional parks, volcanoes, mounts, sea and beaches, historical cities and village, food tasting. Well, all this things worth a visit allow you to organize more than one tour, making Sicily tour an experience full of new thing to discover.
You can do a mixed tour joining various attractions. For example you can organize five stages each of which will consists in different thing to see: the first day you can do visit to Catania, the second pay a visit to Vendicari Natural Reserve, the third go to Valley of the Temples, the fourth pay a visit to Palermo and mondello beach, the fifth return to east part of island to visit Etna and its regional park.
The coloured things here you can see make Sicily unique in the world, allowing you to come here and relax, doing excursion, tasting food, visiting museums and living local folk-lore.
I suggest to search information about the things you can visits, so you can organize your tour in the best way.
Here you will find all the types of attractions attending in the island.
Nature
Nature is a great Sicilian resource. The variety of the landscape give you the possibility to chise different types of trip: you can climb a volcano or mount, you can do an excursion in the more than two hundred Etna's grotto, you can visit the Vendicari Reserve and do an original activity such as Birdwatching, or you can enjoy of the beautiful view of Sicilian coasts such as jonic coast, tirreno coast, south coast where there is the famous summer resort of Marina di Ragusa.
Other interesting thing done by many foreign tourists is a Sicily bicycle tour through the most beautiful place of the island.
You will find well-preserved natural attraction: remember that Sicily house three important protected areas such as Etna Regional Park, Madonie Regional Park, Nebrodi Regional Park, Alkàntara Regional Park. You will live the sensation that here man has never come
Volcanoes
Volcanoes are the more interesting things. They show a lunar landscape and make you live an unforgettable experience.
Many tourists that have climbed Etna talked of the landscape that is possible to admire from that altitude: the Jonic coast from Messina to Syracuse, Calabria, Eolie islands. Goethe climbed until Monti Rossi, not until crater, but also a low altitude allowed him to enjoy the same view.
You can climb Etna until main crater at 3340 m. Sea level, or visit the other craters. A guide is indispensable for this excursion, because the route is dangerous for the inexperienced people.
Etna has a natural view that doesn't run out in the lunar landscape of summit or of craters, but also worth a visit that Pine forest near Linguaglossa Pineta Ragabo, where you can admire its old trees immersed in the fog forest. But you could see also animals such as viper of Etna.
Grottoes are the goal of interesting excursions: Etna has more than 200 grottoes!
Grotta del Gelo at 2000 m sl, (in Randazzo territory). It is difficult find this grotto without the help of a guide, also becasue there are not signs tha allow you to reach the destination.
This grotto is famous for its everlasting ice, some cracks and stalactites.
Moving inside is difficult and the visit here are not possible until spring, because the entrance is covered by snow.
Other grottos: Grotta delle Femmine, Grotta delle Palombe, Grotta comune (in Trecastagni village), Grotta La Fenice (Zafferana) and many others.
Visit Etna means see the places of past lava casts: casts of 2002 and of other years . You will admire the gathered whole of lava that make the view wild such as the territories of Belpasso, Nicolosi. But most famous wild region of Etna is Valle del Bove
Other volcano is Stromboli. It gives the name to the island where it is found and the summit crater reach 926 m of altitude. It has 400 Inhabitants.
Twice during the 20th century (in 1919 and 1930) there have been large eruptions that caused significant damage and killed people.
The last eruption happened on 2003: strong explosions followed by lava flows into the sea, the collapse of a part of the Sciara del Fuoco produced a tsunami that caused serious damages.
Vulcano island. Here is possible visit the crater and the signs of its past geological life.
Ferdinandea Island, emerged in 1831. It appeared such as a great steamy volcanic rock.
Positioned between Sciacca and Pantelleria island, Ferdinandea island isn't today visible because it is covered by water.
This submarine phenomenon is not unusual in Sicily, in fact all the island around Sicily have a volcanic origin.
The main activity to do in Sicilian volcanoes is hiking, trying to climb and reach the summit craters. This activity needs of an expert guide, because go there alone can be difficult and dangerous.
Natural Regional Parks
The vegetation and animals of this natural paradise will be the more interesting attraction the many excursions you can do.
You will walk through paths with amazing and uncontaminated landscape, the whole immersed in a wild atmosphere as man here has never come.
Cities and villages
Sicily is full of archaeological sites, and this is a testimony of past Greek dominance. Many finds are well-preserved, and see them will be an amazing experience.
Where are the best beaches?
Here are the complete list of the most beautiful beaches:
- Mondello Lido (Mondello), near Palermo. The sandy beaches extend for 2 km.
- Mortelle, the best beaches in the north-east of Sicily near Messina.
- Black Sands Beach (Volcano), unique of their kind, are the beaches of black sand volcanic Aeolian Islands.
- Lido Mazzarò (Taormina), the best Sicilian beach. It 'a language of beach on board the coast. Linked to 15 of Taormina and cable car with its historic center.
- The beach of Giardini Naxos, Just below the promontory on which resides Taormina. (link Gardens)
- Marina di Ragusa, south-east near the city of Ragusa.
- The beaches of Catania. Catania has the peculiarity of having 3 different types of beaches.
- The beach of San Giovanni licuti, near the nerve centre of the city, characterized by the presence of volcanic sand.
- The beach Playa, one long smears of yellow sand that extends south to Syracuse
- The reef, which also includes the towns of Acicastello and Aci trezza, characterized by the rocks resulting from lava flows of Etna.
