Sample Family Trip Itinerary

Day 1

Palermo, Monreale, and Sciacca, Italy

Upon arrival to Palermo Airport, meet your private English-speaking driver (who will be holding a sign with your name) at the arrival’s hall (after passport control, baggage claim and customs), and be transferred to your luxury resort in Sciacca. Stop on the way to meet your guide and visit Palermo and Monreale.

The itinerary begins with a morning visit of the Capo market, the oldest in Palermo, where you will see and taste famous Palermo Street Food such as “panelle”, “arancine”, “crocchette” and “Pani Ca Meusa”. Admire colorful stalls featuring an abundance of fruit, vegetables, seafood and meats as the sellers’ cry for our attention.

Enjoy a street food tasting. Then, visit Palermo that stretches along a beautiful bay on the Tyrrhenian Sea. Founded by the Phoenicians in the VIIth and VIIIth centuries B.C., the city was conquered by Arabs in 831, and a period of immense prosperity began.

You will be enchanted by the city’s wide boulevards, traditional Sicilian Old Quarter, and baroque palaces.

The true center of Palermo is the ‘Quattro Canti’, the intersection of the city’s two main thoroughfares, and the nearby Cathedral is a building at the intersection of centuries of architectural styles. Serving as a basilica, a cathedral and a Muslim mosque, the architectural details of this fascinating building reveal its rich history. Visit the Palatine Chapel.

Then join your driver for the leisurely drive through the Conca d’Oro Valley to Monreale. The cathedral and its Benedictine monastery were founded in 1172 by the Norman King William II and provides a typical Sicilian fusion of architectural styles: Byzantine mosaics, Arab-inspired ornamental floors and a magnificent cloister flanked by a series of unique, decorative columns. Arrival at your resort and accommodation in an elegant sea view room.

Day 2

Sambuca Di Sicilia, Italy

Breakfast in hotel. Pick up by your private driver escort and leave to the Planeta Winery. You will discover a landscape marked by the alternation of vineyards, olive groves, citrus groves, gorse shrubs, daisies, carob trees and prickly pear cacti and …. You will taste fine wines with a unique taste and an irresistible scent of spring. Reach Sambuca di Sicilia and visit Planeta Ulmo Winery, founded in 1995 on the banks of Lake Arancio surrounded by vineyards and a native olive tree grove. You will visit the facilities the aging cellar and a tasting of four different wines and Extra Virgin Olive Oil paired with local lunch.

Afternoon at leisure to relax at your amazing property! Enjoy the pool or the spa which is included. Enhance your well-being with a restorative treatment or a dip in Thalassotherapy pools. Relax in infrared or Finnish saunas. Take a yoga class and get your pulse racing in a well-equipped fitness studio.

Day 3

Sant’angelo Muxaro, Italy

Breakfast at the resort. Pick up in hotel by your English-speaking driver guide. Today, you will visit one of the most typical village of the Agrigento Province, in the ancient heart of Sicily, at the gates of the Sican Mountains. Sant’Angelo Muxaro rises in the place that saw the epos of the Sican King Kokalos, in a secret and ancient land, far from the touristic areas, on a hill over the Valley of the Platani river. Along the town’s lanes and courtyards, you can enjoy the sight of the wild and luxuriant countryside.

The first kilometers will take you into a natural path leading to the characteristic hill of Sant’Angelo. You will continue this scenic route until the archaeological area, where you will visit tombs and recent diggings. Along the way, you will see almond, pistachio and olive trees. At about 270 meters, you will stop at the Tholos tomb, also known as The Tomb of the Prince. This whole area is connected to the myth of Daedalus and Icarus as well as the Minotaur labyrinth. Your guide will then take you to a bakery to taste biscuits and homemade cookies. Then, you will visit a shepherd’s house to taste soft pecorino cheese and ricotta cheese, fresh and still warm. Finally reach on old bakery where you will learn how to prepare Sicilian bread and pizza (sfincione) with traditional ingredients like pecorino cheese, olive oil and sardines.

For lunch, pizza and hot bread with olive oil and oregano will be served. This walking itinerary really takes you far from the classic tourist routes. Return at the hotel and afternoon at leisure.

Day 4

Segesta, Erice, Marsala, Italy

Breakfast in hotel. Pick up by your private driver and leave to go to Segesta where you will meet your guide, for a guided tour of the Temple and the Theatre.

Next stop Erice, a wonderfully preserved mediaeval hill town at the extreme north-west corner of Sicily, on the top of Monte San Giuliano.

The town overlooks the city of Trapani and the lower western coast towards the Egadi Islands, where sea salt is made, offering a most breathtaking view.

On a clear day, you can see the African coast. You will visit the Norman Castle and the Duomo as you walk through the cobble-stoned streets of the town, taking in the fresh air and a variety of aromas emanating from the numerous pastry shops for which Erice is known.

In fact, you will stop to visit a well-known pastry shop to see and taste the variety of sweets that is lovingly created. You will drive and admire the salt pans along the salt road between Trapani and Marsala before to arrive at your luxury resort in Sciacca. Accommodation in reserved room and time at leisure to relax.

Enjoy your lunch in a local trattoria by the sea before to return at your resort.

Day 5

Agrigento, Italy

Breakfast in hotel. Pick up by your English-speaking driver and drive to Agrigento to visit the wonderful Valley of Temples. As one of the premier Italian destinations, it is easy to forget that Sicily was once a thriving Greek colony. Once in Agrigento join your expert local guide to explore one of the best-preserved relics of the island’s ‘Magna Graecia’…

As English author and historian Douglas Sladen once said, “If you want to understand ancient Greece, come to Sicily.” Indeed, history tells us that there were once more Greeks living in the colonies of southern Italy and Sicily known as Magna Graecia than there were Greeks living in Greece.

Meet our expert local guide at The Valley of the Temples to tour one of Magna Graecia’s best-preserved temple complexes and enjoy an in-depth exploration of the complex. You’ll hear the amazing story these eight temples tell: from the almost entirely intact Temple of Concordia to the Temple of Hera that suffered in a medieval earthquake and from the Temple of Juno on its hilltop perch to the unfortunate Temple of Zeus, dismantled by greedy builders over the centuries for its stones.

Picnic lunch will be served at the Kolymbetra Garden inside the Valley of the Temples, that was an old Greek water reservoir. Originally, this garden was an exquisite artificial lake, surrounded by beautiful plants and flowers. It was not only used as a water reserve for the city, but also a place for people to sit and contemplate. Today, the Kolymbetra Garden, represents an enchanting concentration of the ancient agricultural and natural landscapes of Southern Sicily. Thanks to the restoration of the garden, visitors can explore the Mediterranean shrubs rich in pistachio, broom, myrtle, tamerix, citrus, ancient varieties of lemon, orange and mandarine, which are irrigated using a system based on that realized by the ancient Arabs.

Day 6

Sciacca, Italy

Breakfast in hotel. After checkout, meet your private English-speaking driver in the lobby of your hotel and be transferred to the Airport for your flight back home.