Carnival in Sicily
Palermo, Agrigento, Taormina
February 19 – 27, 2006
sponsored by tdf




This 8 day 7 night Mediterranean Spring trip centers around Carnival in Sicily. The tour includes the following: roundtrip airfare on Alitalia, 7 nights in 4-star accommodations, Breakfast daily, 2 dinners, 3 lunches, performance of Sicilian Marionettes, folk dancing at Ditirammu Theatre, tours including Palermo, Valley de Templi, Piazza Amerina, Taormina, Mt. Etna, Carnival in Acireale,  tour of the ancient theatre at Taormina, English speaking local guide throughout, local taxes, service charges and transfers.  
 
Trip price: $2799 (double occupancy), details below.  



Escape to Sicily for an early Mediterranean Spring when the dramatic landscapes of this beautiful ancient land are verdant and flowers are in profusion.  Building on the success of prior visits to this enchanting island tdf Travel is once again offering this eight-day, seven-night tour to Sicily during Carnival.  Enjoy the rich natural beauty of the island's rugged mountains and coastline along with its distinctive, delicious cuisine, warm and friendly people and its myriad outstanding ancient sites.  The historic influences of East and West remain visibly etched in stone in the baroque churches, the Norman castles, the Spanish Palaces, the Moorish domes and arches, and the spectacular Greek and Roman temples and amphitheaters that include the best-preserved Hellenic sites outside of Greece.  We stay in four-star accommodations in the heart of the cities and we visit Palermo, Monreale, Agrigento, Piazza Armerina, Taormina, and Mt. Etna before the crowds arrive.  






1.  Sunday, February 19     Depart New York
We depart from New York/JFK Airport on our Alitalia flight in the late afternoon.  Dinner is served aloft.



2.  Monday, February 20     Arrive Palermo
Welcome to Italy!  This morning we arrive in Milan and transfer to our nonstop flight to Palermo, arriving at 11:30am.  Here we meet our guide who accompanies us throughout our tour of Sicily.  After lunch (included) we embark on a guided tour of this magnificently diverse city.  Palermo is typically Sicilian in the eclectic multi-cultural fusion of its art, architecture, culture and lifestyle.  In the narrow streets of Palermo's old town, elegant Baroque and Norman monuments exist cheek-by-jowl with Arabic cupolas, Byzantine street-markets consume the medieval warrens, and the latest Milanese fashions sit in shops squeezed between Renaissance churches and Spanish Palazzo.  We spend two nights at the four-star Grand Hotel et Des Palmes, located in the center of the city.  This traditional belle époque hotel has all modern comforts and is renowned as the place where Richard Wagner wrote his last opera, Parsifal.  This evening we savor a welcome dinner at a local restaurant near our hotel and we attend a folklore performance at the Ditirammu Theatre.  



3.  Tuesday, February 21     Monreale/Palermo
After our daily breakfast we visit Monreale, a small hill town southwest of Palermo, which commands unsurpassed views of the Conca D'Oro valley.  Norman Lewis called the valley, "the greatest and most glorious orchard and market garden in the world."  We enjoy the panorama from the "royal mountain," a mighty Norman cathedral hidden further in among the houses, and the distinguished beautiful Cloisters.  After the Cloisters we return to Palermo where we tour the Teatro Massimo, Palermo’s elegant and recently restored Opera House.   We visit to the Marionette Museum and we attend a performance of the world-famous Sicilian marionettes.  
 



4.  Wednesday, February 22     Palermo/Agrigento
After breakfast, we depart by private motor coach for Agrigento for an overnight stay at the four-star Grand Hotel dei Templi.  This afternoon our sightseeing tour takes us to the ruins of the Valley of the Temples, where the city’s ancient architects erected most of their sacred buildings during the fifth century BC.  The four major temples were - and are - stunning in their effect, reflecting the wealth and luxury of ancient Agrigento.  It’s "Athens with improvements," as Henry Adams succinctly put it in 1899.  The panoramic view of the Valley of the Temples is truly grand, overlooking some of the most impressive Greek ruins of the Mediterranean.  The gently rolling hills surrounding the spectacular temples wear a white mantle of blossoms gleaming on hundreds of almond trees, filling the air with the sweet perfume that heralds the arrival of spring.  The Tempio de Concordia, dated to around 430 BC, is perfectly preserved and beautifully situated, with fine views to the city and the sea.  After lunch (included) we follow the path along the line of the ancient city walls, which hug the ridge to the Tempio di Giunone (Temple of Juno, or Hera in Greek), an engaging structure, half in ruins, standing at the very edge of the spur on which the temples were built.    The 6th century BC Tempio di Ercole (Herakles) and the mammoth Tempio de Giove (Zeus) are still impressive even though they are mostly scattered in magnificent disarray.  We complete the day with a visit to the home of the renowned Italian playwright, Luigi Pirandello.  The house displays photographs, Pirandello's first editions, and the playbills of his works.  Dinner tonight is on your own.    



5.  Thursday, February 23     Piazza Armerina/Taormina
After breakfast, we depart by private motor coach for Taormina, via the ruins of the Villa Romana del Casale at Piazza Armerina, an Imperial Roman villa in the southern interior.  Excavations in 1950 in the rugged countryside at Casale slowly revealed the extensive rich villa, an Imperial Roman hunting lodge and summer home that had been hidden and preserved under mud for over 700 years.  Beautifully presented, the floors of the villa are entirely decorated with multicolored mosaic tiles, dating from the third and fourth centuries, depicting varied aspects of Roman life, that are unique throughout the Roman world in their quality and extent.  They provide a vivid glimpse back into the life of ancient Rome.  Lunch is included in Piazza Armerina.  Next, we continue on to Taormina.  Standing high on Monte Tauro and dominating the two grand, sweeping bays below, Taormina is Sicily's best-known resort and it is a strong contender for the title of most beautiful place on earth!  Taormina forms a balcony overlooking the sea, facing Mount Etna.  This climactic resort of worldwide repute has a peaceful atmosphere, beautiful monuments, spectacular views and lovely gardens that invite exploration on foot.  The coast below Taormina is fascinating.  As Goethe said, "we enjoyed the view of this beautiful shore, under the loveliest of skies, looking at the roses and listening to the nightingales."  Our hotel is the four-star Hotel Villa Diodoro, with spectacular views overlooking the Ionian Sea and Mt. Etna, and just a few minutes walk from the historic center of town.    



6.  Friday, February 24     Taormina
In the morning our walking tour of Taormina includes Via Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, which is on the site of the Roman Forum, the Palazzo Corvala, the recently unearthed remains of an imperial Roman bath, and the magnificent Teatro Greco, a Roman reconstruction of an earlier Greek theatre, where, from the perspective of the audience, we may see Taormina to the right, Mt. Etna directly ahead and the Sicilian coast, the Ionian Sea and Calabria to the left, all in one spectacular sweeping view.  The gate of the Torre dell' Orologio leads to the medieval part of the town, where many houses still preserve their ancient portals and Roman-Gothic windows.  On the Piazza del Duomo is the 13th century Norman cathedral, the Duomo, with splendid triptychs by painters of the Messina school.  In the afternoon we are free to explore the treasures of this extraordinary town on our own.  Why not visit Castelmola, a charming small village even higher up Mt. Tauro, where the views are even more spectacular.    
 



7.  Saturday, February 25     Siracusa
Today you are free to explore the delights of Taormina on your own.  We also offer an optional full day tour of Siracusa.  We travel via private motorcoach to this ancient city, founded by the Greeks from Corinth, and once the most important city in the Western World.  Siracusa reached its zenith in the 5th century BC when it ruled all of Sicily.  In the unique Parco Archeologico, the impressive ruins include the magnificent Greek Theatre, one of the biggest and best preserved in the entire Mediterranean, situated adjacent to a large Roman Coliseum and an ancient quarry possessing such remarkable acoustics that Caravaggio called it "Orecchio de Dionisiso" (the ear of Dionysius).  The quarry was once a prison for 7000 Athenian prisoners of war.  Next, following lunch on your own, we visit the beautiful island of Ortygia.  Here, amid the artistic vestiges of over 2500 years of history, we walk streets once trod by Pindar, Aeschylus, Plato, Cicero and Archimedes.  We explore the Piazza Archimede, the legendary Fonte Aretusa (Fountain of Arethusa), and Siracusa's historically unique Duomo, a building that has been a Greek Temple, a Moslem mosque and Christian church at various times in its long history, one which is clearly visible in the architecture of the building.  We return to Taormina in the late afternoon.  Dinner is on your own.    
 



8.  Sunday, February 26     Mt. Etna
This morning we drive along the coastline, renowned for its beautiful scenery, stopping to ascend the slopes of massive Mt. Etna.  The volcano totally dominates the life and landscape of eastern Sicily.  Some villages and roads are built from lava and the flows have cut great swaths through the valley that has ultimately provided the extremely fertile soil of the island.  The views are impressive as we ascend the snow-capped mountain.  The temperature drops, and we might experience the occasional snow flurry.  On a previous tdf trip, the Sicilians, with characteristic nonchalance, were skiing within 500 meters of a major lava flow, utterly unimpressed by the phenomenon.  Next we visit Acireale to experience the Sicilian’s celebration of Carnival.  This evening we have our farewell dinner at a local restaurant.  



9.  Monday, February 26     Depart Catania
After breakfast we depart by private motor coach to the Catania airport for our Alitalia flight to Rome, connecting to New York/JFK.  





This engaging experience includes:

  • Round trip airfare on Alitalia
  • 2 night at Grand Hotel et Des Palmes, Palermo
  • 1 night at Grand Hotel de Templi, Agrigento
  • 4 nights at Hotel Villa Diodoro, Taormina
  • Breakfast daily
  • 2 dinners
  • 3 lunches
  • Performance of Sicilian Marionettes
  • Folk dancing at Ditirammu Theatre
  • Tours including Palermo, Valley de Templi, Piazza Amerina, Taormina,
  • Tour of the ancient theatre at Taormina
  • English speaking local guide throughout
  • Local taxes, service charges and transfers
PROGRAM PRICES  
Per person (double occupancy) from New York: $2799  
Single Supplement: $475  
Air Taxes: $145  
Optional Siracusa Tour:  $65.00