My wife (Stephanie), my 2-year-old daughter (Emily) and I arrived at the Palermo airport in mid-May, 2004 ready for a week and a half away from workday rhythms. We flew into Sicily from Rome using AirOne, Lufthansa’s airline partner. A good airline. Their prices are competitive with Volareweb and Alitalia (AirOne’s two big competitors) and they’re efficient and organized. In addition, we had heard that some Rome to Palermo Volareweb flights had been cancelled due to low passenger bookings. True or not, we didn’t want to take the chance. The plane was new, the staff was excellent and the plane took off on time – in both directions. We paid US $160 for the Rome to Palermo roundtrip. (All prices herein are in U.S. dollars as of Spring, 2004.)

The Car Rental company that we used was our old standby, Auto Europe, a company that contracts with other rental agencies abroad. They typically have the best rates. I’ve used them before in Germany, France and Italy. For the Sicilian trip, they’ve contracted with Europcar. Europcar initially put us in an Alfa Romeo 156 but we couldn’t fit all of our luggage into the small trunk so Stephanie insisted on our upgrading to a large Opel sedan. I didn’t need a speedy espresso rocket anyway, right? We noted that the tank was full and began preparing ourselves for the expensive petrol stations – in Sicily, we’d spend over $50 to fill the tank. Gas is expensive so consider this when weighing transport options.

Before stepping into the car, I noted that it had a few scrapes and scratches. I had read that most cars in Sicily are quickly given “personality”. Blame it on the roads off the highways that were never built to handle cars and vehicular traffic. (We often had to fold back our side mirrors to fit through some small-town streets.)

I didn’t care about the “personality” blemishes but when I discovered that there was no CD player in the car, I began to yell some colorful expletives. (I was later told that few rental cars in Sicily have CD players.) This made the 15 CD’s that I had specially prepared for the trip that much more useful as espresso cup coasters. The baby seat on the other hand was decent so Stephanie wouldn’t let me complain.

Although we had landed at the Palermo airport, we made sure to steer clear of Palermo on the first part of our journey. Amongst Sicilians, Palermo is considered to be a difficult city to drive in and is reputed to have some of the worst traffic in Europe. In addition, the city is teaming with aggressive drivers. I should know. I am one.

For the most part, I found Sicilian highways to be excellent. Be aware though that there are many slow moving vehicles, including tractors and mopeds on the roads. I drove most of the trip at speeds of 80-90 mph and passed lots of drivers. Be careful of those tractors.

Many friends and family members asked us why we decided to go to Sicily. Sicily appealed to us because of the mix of cultures that passed through the island. Various civilizations arrived to pillage, conquer and rule the land. They left behind Arab street names, Greek ruins, Roman mosaics… I imagined Sicily a lot of Spain - a land where one group built on the foundation of another group – a church built on top of a mosque built on top of a Greek temple. The second reason we wanted to go to Sicily was because our favorite film director, Guiseppe Tornatore (“Cinema Paradiso”, “Malena”, “The Starmaker”), was from Sicily and all of his movies took place in Sicily. Stephanie and I always watched his films and wished we could taste a little of the rough, romantic flavors that were featured in these films. Love, food, adventure…

I asked Stephanie if our guidebooks were ready for action. We had with us 3 guidebooks that turned out to be very reliable: Lonely Planet (strong on maps, hotels and restaurants), the Michelin Green Guide (strong on archeological sites and historical information) and DK / Eyewitness’ Top 10 (strong on helping us prioritize sights given our limited time). I’ve never used any sort of Top Ten guidebook in the past; however, our trip was limited to just 9 days so this book was indispensable. It differed dramatically from Michelin’s guidebook. Many of the 2- or 3- starred Michelin sites were lower on the Eyewitness Top Ten lists than a no- or 1-starred Michelin site. Different perspective I guess. I liked that. The French only think they have the final word on cultural opinion.

Truth be told, we had someone traveling with us who made the Top Ten Guidebook essential. It was our 2-year-old. She slowed us down. So we really needed this guidebook to help maximize our time. Last year, the three of us visited Rome and Tuscany for 2 weeks. Emily was 7 months old at the time so it was easy. We wheeled her around so she had no choice but to bend to our every whim. Things are tougher this time ‘round. Our 2-year-old is strong-willed and independent. We quickly discovered that as long as we allowed for “Emily” time along the way, we’d be fine. A park or church steps or a fountain for her to run around and blow off steam for 30-40 minutes at least two times a day kept her happy throughout the trip.

The month of May turned out to be a great time to take the trip. I can’t imagine a better time to visit Sicily than in the spring. It’s not too hot, the Sicilians are gearing up for the rush of summer so opening hours are extended, the beaches can still be visited, everything is in bloom and the berries and vegetables are at their best. Fall would be the second best time to go and winter the next best. I would highly advise anyone traveling to Sicily for reasons related to anything other than “the beach” to absolutely avoid this place in the summer. Forget about it. Even in the early part of spring, it was hot and slightly uncomfortable. I can only imagine how uncomfortable and miserable the sights would be having to visit them with swarms of tourist hordes. That being said, I was not impressed much with the beaches. There are certainly more beautiful beaches on the Italian Tyrrheanian and Adriatic coasts.

One thing that will keep you happy on your trip and make it easy and efficient is a cellular telephone. Get a cell phone if you plan on spending more than a week on the island. I had a cell phone with me in Italy and this was one of the smartest things that I arranged for prior to taking the trip. I got the phone through a company called Cellular Abroad. This company will ship a phone anywhere in U.S. and will come pre-installed with a working Italian phone card. I never had trouble receiving or making a call anywhere in Sicily. It worked out well being able to call hotels to make reservations or to check with restaurants to make sure that they were open and available to seat us. The owner of Cellular Abroad is from Italy so he knows what he’s doing.

One final piece of advice about traveling to Sicily: educate yourself about the parking. Parking in public areas is a wee-bit complicated. Every town here has their own system. One system involves a wheel that is placed on a car’s windshield. You turn the dial to the time that the car is parked. If there is a sign posting 1 hour parking, you can park for one hour past the time that is displayed on the wheel. Every car in Sicily has this clock wheel. The problem is that when you want to park for more than the allotted time, you have to return to the car to adjust the wheel. I had to do this several times on the trip. In some Sicilian towns, it is necessary to purchase a parking card from the local tobacco shop. And in other towns they have a central meter that is fed change. I somehow got 2 parking tickets while in Sicily and have never been able to determine why I got them! Don’t fret if you get a ticket or two. Just throw ‘em away and see if they can figure out how to track you down. It’s now almost two months that we’ve been back home and I haven’t heard a thing about either ticket.

I adjusted my seat and rear-view mirror, located a decent radio station and then pulled out of the airport parking lot and headed west.