Watch chocolate being made at an artisanal workshop in Modica and sample pieces with the town’s distinctive grainy texture. Learn how the traditional cold-working process differs from methods used for smoother chocolate.

Modica’s chocolate-making heritage draws on techniques that became established in Sicily centuries ago. Seeing the craft close up brings its characteristic texture and rich aroma into focus, while the tasting lets you appreciate the result for yourself.

Explore Palermo on a walking tour with a Local Expert and enter the 12th-century Palatine Chapel inside the Norman Palace. Look closely at its glittering mosaics, carved details and richly decorated interior.

Commissioned under Sicily’s Norman kings, the chapel brings together Byzantine artistry, Islamic craftsmanship and Latin Christian traditions. Its modest exterior offers little hint of the luminous workmanship within, making the visit a vivid introduction to Palermo’s layered history.

• 5 Dinner (D)
• 8 Breakfast (B)

• Hand sanitizer is freely available on board for you to use throughout the day.

• “A type of food I really love introducing my guests to is the street food because it tells a lot about the habits of the locals, it can be a slice of pizza folded up or a sfogliatella in Naples, an arancini, a gelato in Sicily, or a cannolo. “
• “One fun fact people don’t usually know before they come to Italy is that the Italian alphabet only has 22 letters.”
• “One thing I really love about showing guests about Italy is how art and beauty can be found around every corner of some of Italy’s cities, which are real open air museums.”

Insight Vacations

• Business class coach with extended leg room
• Top-rated dining, from farm-to-table to local restaurants
• 4 & 5-star stays

Meet your Travel Director and small group over dinner at a local restaurant in Palermo. Share a table and get to know the people travelling with you while enjoying your first taste of Sicilian hospitality.

Palermo’s food traditions reflect centuries of Arab, Norman and Mediterranean influence. The welcome dinner offers a relaxed introduction to the island’s flavours and to the small-group experience.

Discover traditional salt production on Trapani’s western coast, where shallow salt pans and an old stone windmill sit between sea and sky. Learn how seawater is guided through the pans and gradually yields salt crystals.

This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® visit highlights a craft passed between generations and supports the preservation of local heritage. The surrounding wetlands also provide habitat for aquatic birds, including flamingos, adding a natural dimension to the working landscape.

Taste Sicilian wines at a local Marsala winery during an exclusive tasting paired with dinner. Savour the wines in the town whose name has become closely associated with one of the island’s best-known wine traditions.

Marsala’s vineyards benefit from western Sicily’s sunshine and coastal setting. A winery visit connects the flavours in the glass with the place they come from, while dinner offers time to appreciate the region’s food and wine around a shared table.

Walk Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples with a Local Expert, exploring the ancient Greek remains spread along a ridge above the Sicilian landscape. See the remarkably preserved Temple of Concordia and the columns of the Temple of Juno.

This UNESCO-listed archaeological site preserves monuments from Akragas, one of the leading cities of the ancient Greek world. Standing among their weathered stone columns gives a sense of the scale, ambition and enduring influence of Greek Sicily.

Visit the Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina and examine the intricate mosaics covering the floors of this expansive Roman villa. Scenes of hunting, daily life and mythology reveal the skill of the artists who worked here.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site preserves one of the richest collections of Roman mosaics anywhere. Their exceptional extent offers a detailed glimpse into the tastes, wealth and imagery of a late Roman household.

Walk through Ragusa Ibla with a Local Expert, following its narrow lanes past elegant facades and Baroque churches. Explore the old town’s distinctive street plan and the architectural details that give its squares and alleyways their character.

Ragusa was extensively rebuilt following the devastating earthquake of 1693. Its historic centre forms part of the UNESCO-listed Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto, where the reconstruction produced some of southeastern Sicily’s most expressive urban architecture.

Savour a farm-to-table dinner in Ragusa built around locally sourced ingredients. Share regional flavours with your small group in a dining experience that places Sicily’s produce at the centre of the meal.

The countryside around Ragusa supports a longstanding food culture shaped by seasonal harvests and local makers. This dinner offers a closer connection to that agricultural heritage than a standard hotel meal, with time to enjoy the dishes and conversation at an unhurried pace.

Walk among Casa Nepeta’s organic herbs near Noto, encountering aromatic plants such as catmint, marjoram and shrubby thyme. Learn how the botanicals are grown and used, and see the production process behind the estate’s artisanal bitter.

Taste a bitter infused with Sicilian botanicals during an early aperitivo. The experience connects the scents of the cultivated plants with the flavours in the glass and with herbs long familiar in local traditions.

Choose a Local Expert-led visit to Syracuse’s ancient sites, walking through the gardens of Paradise Quarry and into the Ear of Dionysius. Listen to the limestone grotto’s striking acoustics before exploring the ancient Greek theatre.

Syracuse was a major city of the Greek world, and its theatre remains a powerful reminder of that past. This is one of two included Syracuse experiences: travellers select it instead of the Ortigia old-town walk.

Choose to explore Ortigia, Syracuse’s island old town, on a walk through narrow lanes lined with historic palaces. Make your way towards the waterfront and Fonte Aretusa, the freshwater spring associated with an ancient Greek legend.

Ortigia’s compact streets reveal the many eras that have shaped Syracuse, from its Greek foundations to its later Baroque architecture. This is one of two included Syracuse experiences: travellers select it instead of the archaeological-site visit.

Visit Taormina’s ancient theatre with a Local Expert, taking in its stone seating, weathered arches and views towards the Ionian Sea and Mount Etna. Explore the town’s limestone streets and lively Corso Umberto.

First built in the Greek period and later adapted by the Romans, the theatre remains Taormina’s defining monument. At Piazza IX Aprile, the open outlook over sea and sky shows why this hilltop town has long drawn visitors.

Gather for a celebration dinner at a local restaurant in the Taormina area, sharing Sicilian dishes and wines with your fellow travellers. The meal is an opportunity to enjoy the island’s culinary traditions together.

Sicilian cooking draws on local produce and centuries of Mediterranean influence. Around the dinner table, those traditions become a convivial experience, with regional flavours and conversation providing a fitting close to the small-group journey.

Consider an optional journey towards Mount Etna through the vineyards on its slopes. Take in the changing landscape around Europe’s largest active volcano, where cultivated vines meet dark volcanic terrain.

Etna’s eruptions have shaped eastern Sicily’s scenery and its distinctive growing conditions for centuries. This excursion offers a closer look at the relationship between the mountain and its surrounding vineyards. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour; specific stops depend on the excursion offered.