Summary:
Marsala - Baglio Oneto Resort and Wines, www.bagliooneto.it
Vittoria - Baglio Occhipinti Resort, www.bagliocchipinti.com
Taormina - Belmond Villa Sant'Andrea
Milan Hotel: Sina The Gray
Day 1: Arrival in Palermo on (overnight flight from New York to Milan and another flight from Milan to Palermo – the connection requires a change of airports and there is a direct bus that goes from Malpensa Airport to Linate Airport for 13 Euros a person)
Upon arrival in Palermo, we checked in at the hotel and went out for dinner – it was a local restaurant with excellent food and great wine.
Day 2: To Erice and Marsala
Breakfast at the hotel and departure for Trapani where we took the cable car to Erice, which is the best preserved medieval town in the world, rich of castles and is known as the town of hundred churches with a breath-taking view from the hilltop. After leaving Erice we stopped for lunch in an olive oil farm under the olive trees, followed by an olive-oil tasting and a tour of the olive-making process. After this we drove to our hotel for an overnight stay at “Baglio Oneto” which is an old 17th Century building and now is a reference point for ecologically sustainable architecture in the western part of Sicily. In the afternoon, we visited an old winery “Florio” where we enjoyed some wine tasting and in the evening we had an Aperitif overlooking the salt-pans in Marsala – very magical place overlooking all the big piles of salt.
Day 3: To Agrigento
After a wonderful breakfast, we headed out to visit the Valley of Temples – the ruins of Greek domination. Here we enjoyed a wonderful lunch - Picnic lunch at the Kolymbetra park which is a garden full of fruit trees from every part of the world and some of the trees are over 1000 years old! Then surrounded by pomegranate, pistachio, orange and lemon trees we dug into a typical Sicilian lunch of pizza, fresh ricotta, eggplant capanota, olives, bread and of course amazing dessert of cannolis don’t forget the wine!
Overnight stay was in a winery – Baglio Occhipinti – it is a beartuful farmhouse with around 12 rooms and extremely charming. Dinner was being prepared in the kitchen and we were allowed to visit and see what was cooking and before dinner as we sipped wine we socialized with the the other residents and exchanged travel stories. The seating for dinner was in a living/dining room area where there was an opening through windows where the grapes would be dumped into a chamber and the grapes were pressed for wine. It was a five course meal and each dish was absolutely delicious.
Day 4: Drive to Noto, Siracusa, Taormina
After breakfast we started the drive to Noto located in what is known as Val di Noto which has extraordinary late baroque buildings. It is very charming and beautiful with an amazing cathedral in the center of the town. Close to the cathedral is Café Sicilia (shown in one of the episode of Chef’s table on Netflix) and it serves the best granita with brioche as well as Sicilian pastries – my favorite being the “Cassatina”. After sampling all the flavors of granite and a short walk in the town we headed to a wine tasting at the “Pupillo” vineyard. It has a very nice building that looks like a castle with a stunning garden and courtyard. The lunch with wine tasting was homemade Sicilian food and then we started our ride to Siracusa which is a coastal town on the eastern side of Sicily. Another beautiful town with buildings that have great architecture and lots of history. The historic center is located on an isthmus where a mix of Medieval and Baroque provide a delightful blending in the narrow streets. Fonte of Arethusa, a mythical spring-fed fountain tied to legend , the Temple of Apollo, a 7th century BC site that was the first great Doric temple, the beautiful baroque Duomo dedicated to St. Lucy who was born and martyred here . After walking around and enjoying the delightful architecture, we were on our way to Taormina where we would spend 2 days.
Day 5-6: Taormina
This was the day to visit Mt Etna and the house where the Godfather movie was filmed. Mt Etna had experienced an earthquake the night before and it seemed that a new opening has been created – there was smoke coming out as we made the drive up to the slopes. We were able to walk around the areas where there were 2 large craters formed during the previous eruptions. After walking around on the slopes, we drove to Fiumefreddo for a visit to the ancestral home of the notorious Corleone family at the heart of Francis Ford Coppola’s classic nine-hour cinematic : the “Castello degli Schiavi”, the house of Don Corleone.This beautiful looking residence was built in 1700 as a country house for the Nobility.The house was location for several scenes throughout the Godfather films including the un-intentional murder of Apollonia in the Godfather and also the brutal revenge killing of Don Ciccio, by Vito Corleone in Godfather part II. We were able to walk into the castle and meet the owner who was a great host and showed us all the spots where the filming took place, he graciously took pictures of us and served us cookies and juice.
The rest of our time was spent in exploring the historic town of Taormina which was accessible by cable car from the main street near our hotel by the shore.
Day 6: Flight to Milan
We spent a nice day in Milan walking around, shopping and enjoyed a nice dinner overlooking the Doumo.
Day 7: Flight to Milan
Half a day in Milan for last minute shopping and then heading to the airport for the flight home.