All-Inclusive Resorts in Sicily

Palermo's Falcone Borsellino Airport is 35 minutes west of the city center. Drop your bags and immediately dive into the street food culture that makes Palermo unique in Italy: the Ballarò market, operating since the 10th century in the Arab quarter, is one of the most colorful and chaotic markets in Europe, selling everything from fresh swordfish to spices to second-hand goods, with vendors calling in a dialect that mixes Italian with Arabic. Try panelle (chickpea fritters), crocchè (potato croquettes), and a pane ca' meusa (spleen sandwich, the most authentic Palermo street food, not for the faint of heart). The Palermo Cathedral and the Palazzo dei Normanni (Royal Palace) with the Cappella Palatina — a Norman-Arab-Byzantine masterpiece of golden mosaics covering every surface — are the city's architectural peaks. The Cappella Palatina in particular is jaw-dropping: Byzantine mosaics of Christ Pantocrator over an Arab muqarnas ceiling in a Norman palace.

• ✦ Ballarò street market — the oldest and most atmospheric in Palermo
• ✦ Panelle and street food from the market stalls
• ✦ Cappella Palatina — Norman-Arab-Byzantine golden mosaics
• ✦ Palermo Cathedral — a 12,000-year architectural palimpsest

Drive three hours south through the Sicilian interior — a landscape of wheat fields, hilltop towns, and an emptiness that feels more North Africa than southern Italy — to Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples, one of the most extraordinary archaeological sites in the world. Seven Greek Doric temples built between 510 and 430 BC stand on a ridge above the Mediterranean, better preserved than most monuments in Greece itself — the Temple of Concordia is the second most intact Greek temple in existence. Visit in the late afternoon when the crowds thin and the temples turn amber in the low sun; the image of the Temple of Concordia outlined against the Mediterranean horizon is unforgettable. The Valley is even more dramatic at night when it's illuminated; some evenings classical music concerts are held between the temples. Dinner in Agrigento town and an overnight at Villa Athena, the only hotel inside the archaeological park, waking to a view of the Temple of Concordia from your bed.

• ✦ Temple of Concordia — second most intact Greek temple in the world
• ✦ Valley of the Temples at golden hour — temples against the Mediterranean
• ✦ Illuminated evening walk between the ancient ruins
• ✦ Villa Athena — the only hotel inside the archaeological park

Drive northeast from Agrigento through the Sicilian interior, passing through the extraordinary Baroque town of Caltagirone (famous for its ceramic staircase of 142 steps, each decorated with hand-painted ceramic tiles) before descending to the Ionian coast and climbing to Taormina — the most beautiful town in Sicily, perched on a cliff 200 meters above the sea with Mount Etna smoking behind it and the turquoise Ionian below. The ancient Greek theater at Taormina is the most spectacularly situated theater in the world: 2,300 years old, with Etna framed perfectly in the stage opening. The Corso Umberto — Taormina's main street — is lined with boutiques, ceramic shops, pastry cafés, and restaurants spilling onto terraces above the sea. Check into the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo, where Elizabeth Taylor, Greta Garbo, and D.H. Lawrence have all stayed. Evening at a clifftop bar as the sun sets over the Tyrrhenian.

• ✦ Caltagirone ceramic staircase — 142 steps in hand-painted Sicilian tiles
• ✦ Greek Theater of Taormina — 2,300 years old with Etna in the stage frame
• ✦ Corso Umberto boutiques, ceramics, and pastry cafés
• ✦ Check-in to the Belmond Grand Hotel Timeo

Etna is a presence you feel throughout Sicily — a smoking, snow-capped presence on the eastern horizon that has been erupting almost continuously for 500,000 years. The cable car from Rifugio Sapienza carries you to 2,500 meters (8,200 feet), from where 4x4 vehicles ascend to the area of the current craters at around 2,900 meters. The landscape is extraordinary: rivers of solidified black lava, steam venting from fumaroles in the rock, and views extending 200 kilometers on a clear day — the entire boot of Italy visible to the north, Tunisia to the south. Come down in the afternoon and visit the Etna wine zone on the northern flanks — the volcanic terroir produces some of Sicily's most distinctive wines, particularly the indigenous Nerello Mascalese grape, which has attracted winemakers from around the world. Tasting at Benanti or Passopisciaro estate.

• ✦ Cable car and 4x4 to the summit craters of Etna
• ✦ Black lava fields and fumaroles at 2,900 meters
• ✦ View from the summit — 200km on a clear day
• ✦ Etna wine tasting — Nerello Mascalese volcanic terroir

Drive 90 minutes south down the Ionian coast to Syracuse — once the most powerful city in the Greek world, larger than Athens or Carthage. The island of Ortigia, connected to the mainland by two small bridges, contains the ancient city center: a 2,700-year urban palimpsest with a Greek temple incorporated into the Cathedral, Arab-Norman architecture overlaid with Spanish Baroque, and narrow alleyways opening onto piazzas with the sea visible at every turn. The Archaeological Museum of Syracuse holds the greatest collection of ancient Sicilian art in the world, including the Venus Anadyomene — a Greek statue of such perfection that Cicero specifically mentioned it in his prosecution of the corrupt Roman governor Verres. Ortigia's morning market, the Fonte Aretusa (a freshwater spring flowing from the rocks directly into the sea, surrounded by papyrus plants — the same papyrus that lines the Nile), and the Duomo piazza at sunset are the day's highlights. Dinner at Don Camillo, the finest restaurant in Syracuse.

• ✦ Ortigia island — the ancient heart of the greatest Greek city of the west
• ✦ Syracuse Cathedral — a Greek Doric temple absorbed into a Baroque church
• ✦ Fonte Aretusa — freshwater spring meeting saltwater sea
• ✦ Archaeological Museum of Syracuse — the Venus Anadyomene

The Val di Noto in southeastern Sicily contains the greatest concentration of Baroque architecture in Europe — eight towns rebuilt after the catastrophic 1693 earthquake in a unified late-Baroque style of honey-colored stone, UNESCO-listed as a group. Ragusa Ibla, the old lower town perched on a rocky promontory above two deep valleys, is the most beautiful: narrow streets of carved stone palazzi, flowering balconies, and the magnificent Church of San Giorgio (its concave façade considered the masterpiece of Sicilian Baroque architecture) surrounded by a piazza where time appears to have stopped in the 18th century. Lunch at Il Duomo Ragusa (two Michelin stars, one of Sicily's best restaurants) before driving 15km to Modica — the world capital of cold-process chocolate, made from a recipe introduced by the Spanish from the Aztec method in the 17th century. The chocolate is grainy, spiced with cinnamon or chili, and unlike anything made by conventional chocolate processing. Buy from Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, Modica's oldest pastry shop since 1880.

• ✦ Ragusa Ibla — the most beautiful Baroque hilltop town in Sicily
• ✦ Church of San Giorgio — the masterpiece of Sicilian Baroque
• ✦ Modica cold-process chocolate — the 17th-century Aztec recipe
• ✦ Il Duomo restaurant — two Michelin stars in a Baroque palazzo

Catania Airport (CTA) is 50 minutes from Taormina and serves many European destinations directly. A final morning might include a swim from the Lido Mazzarò beach directly below Taormina (the cable car connects the town to the beach in three minutes), or a final walk on the Corso Umberto for last-minute Sicilian ceramic, wine, and olive oil shopping. The granita culture of eastern Sicily — almond granita, pistachio granita, mulberry granita, all served with fresh brioche for breakfast — is one of the world's great food experiences; don't leave without a final bowl at Bar Turrisi or Bar San Giorgio in Taormina. Sicily has a way of making you feel that you've barely scratched the surface after a week — and that feeling is entirely correct.

• ✦ Final granita con brioche — Sicily's extraordinary breakfast tradition
• ✦ Cable car down to Lido Mazzarò for a final swim
• ✦ Corso Umberto ceramic and wine shopping
• ✦ Transfer to Catania Airport for departure