Explore Palermo with a Local Expert on a walking tour that includes the 12th-century Palatine Chapel. Step inside to see gold-ground mosaics covering its walls and ceiling, a striking contrast with the chapel’s restrained exterior.

Built for Sicily’s Norman rulers, the chapel brings Byzantine imagery, Islamic-influenced decoration and Latin Christian worship together in one space. It offers a vivid introduction to Palermo’s layered history and the cultures that shaped the island.

Discover Palermo through its food on a Dine-Around evening focused on dishes locals enjoy and the ways they share them. The experience gives you a more personal taste of the capital than a conventional hotel dinner.

Sicilian cooking reflects the island’s long history of exchange across the Mediterranean. In Palermo, that heritage lives in everyday flavours, convivial tables and a lively dining culture. It is a chance to connect the city’s culinary traditions with the place where they are still enjoyed.

• 7 Dinner (D)
• 13 Breakfast (B)
• 1 Lunch (L)

• 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.”

• Sliema: Visit the National War Museum, site of a former air raid shelter. Learn about the important role Malta played during WWII while you explore with a historian.

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 fellow travellers over dinner at a local restaurant in Palermo. This hosted gathering offers a welcoming introduction to the group and a chance to settle into the rhythms of Sicily’s capital.

Palermo’s food culture draws on centuries of Mediterranean influence, from Arab-era ingredients to enduring Italian traditions. The evening is an opportunity to share a table and begin discovering the city through its cuisine.

Visit Trapani’s salt pans and an ancient stone windmill to see how seawater becomes salt crystals along Sicily’s western coast. The shallow pans, coastal light and traditional mill create a distinctive landscape shaped by generations of work.

This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience explores a craft handed down locally rather than treating the salt pans as a scenic backdrop. The surrounding wetlands also provide habitat for aquatic birds, including flamingos, linking an enduring industry with its coastal environment.

Taste Sicilian wines at a local Marsala winery in the town whose name is closely associated with one of the island’s best-known wines. Enjoy the tasting in winery surroundings while learning to recognise the character of wines produced in this western Sicilian setting.

Marsala’s winemaking story is entwined with its coastal position and centuries of trade. Sampling wine where it is made gives the experience a sense of place, connecting the flavours in the glass to the town and its traditions.

Explore the Valley of the Temples with a Local Expert in Agrigento, walking among monumental remains of the ancient Greek world. See the remarkably preserved Temple of Concordia and the Temple of Juno, set above the surrounding Sicilian landscape.

This UNESCO-listed archaeological area preserves traces of Akragas, once a powerful Greek city. Its temples reveal both the scale of its ambitions and the skill of its builders, while the open setting makes their relationship with the landscape clear.

Visit the Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina and explore rooms decorated with exceptionally detailed Roman floor mosaics. Their scenes of daily life, mythology and hunting offer a close look at the tastes of the villa’s wealthy occupants.

Inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997, the villa is among the most revealing surviving examples of a luxurious late Roman residence. Its extensive mosaics turn what might otherwise be ruins into a richly illustrated portrait of life in antiquity.

Walk through Ragusa Ibla with a Local Expert, following its winding lanes past Baroque churches and elegantly ornamented facades. The old town’s steps, small squares and stone buildings reward exploration at a pedestrian pace.

Ragusa’s history reaches back to ancient Sicily, but much of the architecture visible today took shape following the devastating earthquake of 1693. Its rebuilding helped create the distinctive Sicilian Baroque townscape recognised as part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Savour a Farm-to-Table dinner at a local restaurant in Ragusa, sharing dishes that highlight fresh, locally sourced ingredients with your fellow travellers. The focus is on the produce and flavours of the surrounding area rather than a routine restaurant stop.

Southeastern Sicily’s agricultural traditions give its kitchens a strong connection to the land. This hosted meal offers a relaxed way to experience that connection, with regional ingredients at the centre of the table and conversation.

Discover how Modica’s handmade chocolate is made and sample its distinctive texture and flavour. Watch the traditional cold-working process, which leaves sugar crystals perceptible in the finished chocolate rather than producing the smooth texture familiar from many other styles.

Modica’s chocolate tradition is a point of local pride in this Baroque town, rebuilt after the earthquake of 1693. Seeing the craft in action makes the tasting more meaningful: each piece reflects a technique maintained by the town’s makers.

Explore ancient Syracuse with a Local Expert on this included Insight Choice activity. Walk through Paradise Quarry, experience the acoustics of the Ear of Dionysius and visit the Greek theatre carved into the rock.

The quarry’s limestone grotto is renowned for the way sound carries within it, while the theatre recalls Syracuse’s prominence in the ancient Greek world. Choose this option for a close encounter with the city’s archaeological landscape; the alternative included choice explores Ortigia.

Walk through Ortigia’s old town on this included Insight Choice activity in Syracuse. Follow narrow lanes between historic buildings towards the Fonte Aretusa, the freshwater spring associated with an ancient Greek legend.

Ortigia is Syracuse’s island heart, where layers of history meet the waterfront. Its compact streets offer a different perspective from the mainland archaeological site. Choose this option to focus on the atmosphere and stories of the old city; the alternative included choice visits Paradise Quarry and the Greek theatre.

Visit Taormina’s ancient theatre with a Local Expert and look through its weathered stone arches towards the Ionian Sea and Mount Etna. Walk the town’s streets and stroll along Corso Umberto, with views opening out from Piazza IX Aprile.

Set high on Mount Tauro, Taormina combines an ancient performance space with a lively town centre and a dramatic coastal setting. The theatre’s surviving form and far-reaching outlook make its hillside position as compelling as its history.

Celebrate Sicily over dinner at a local restaurant, sharing Sicilian cuisine and Italian wines with your fellow travellers. This hosted occasion is designed as a culinary celebration rather than an everyday meal.

The island’s cooking reflects its varied landscapes and long Mediterranean history, with regional traditions that remain central to local life. Around the table, the flavours offer a fitting way to reflect on the places explored across Sicily and the people who give them character.

Explore Valletta with a Local Expert, visiting the Upper Barrakka Gardens and St John’s Co-Cathedral as you walk the capital’s golden-stone streets. The gardens offer an outlook over the Grand Harbour; the cathedral reveals an ornate Baroque interior.

Founded by the Knights of St John in the 16th century, Valletta was planned as a fortified city. Its streets and monumental buildings tell the story of Malta’s strategic position in the Mediterranean.

Explore Malta’s National War Museum with a historian and learn about the island’s role during the Second World War. The guided visit places the objects and stories on display within the broader experience of wartime Malta.

Situated in Valletta, the museum offers a focused perspective on a period when Malta’s location made it strategically vital and its people endured sustained attacks. A historian’s insight helps connect the exhibits to the human impact of those events.

Explore Mdina with a Local Expert, walking its shaded lanes and enclosed streets within the fortified hilltop city. The warm stone facades and quiet atmosphere explain why Malta’s former capital is known as the Silent City.

Mdina’s walls contain centuries of Maltese history in a remarkably compact setting. Exploring on foot brings its gateways, historic buildings and peaceful corners into focus, offering a contrast with the bustle of the island’s coastal towns.

Visit Palazzo Falson in Mdina to discover a historic house museum devoted to Malta’s heritage. Explore the palazzo’s setting and experience its exclusive rooftop garden, where endemic plants support local pollinators.

This MAKE TRAVEL MATTER® experience brings together cultural preservation and care for the island’s environment. The garden adds a living dimension to the visit: alongside the palazzo’s historic character, it shows how a heritage space can also provide habitat for local species.

Toast your travels over a Farm-to-Table dinner at a local restaurant in Malta. Share a final hosted meal with your fellow travellers, with locally sourced ingredients at the heart of the experience.

Malta’s food traditions reflect both its island setting and the cultures that have crossed the Mediterranean. This dinner offers time to enjoy those flavours together and to reflect on the journey in the convivial setting of a local table.

Explore the town of Noto on an optional experience from the Ragusa area. This excursion offers the chance to see another of southeastern Sicily’s celebrated Baroque towns, known for its honey-coloured stone buildings and grand streets.

Noto was extensively rebuilt following the earthquake of 1693 and forms part of the UNESCO-listed Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the supplied itinerary does not specify its individual visits.

Experience rural Sicilian flavours at Tenuta del Gelso on an optional evening pairing food with wines from the Mount Etna area. The setting offers a different perspective on Sicily’s dining culture, with regional tastes taking centre stage.

Etna’s volcanic landscape has a distinctive winemaking identity, making its wines a meaningful accompaniment to local cuisine. This hosted experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour, offering a food-and-wine option beyond the included meals.

Journey through vineyard country towards Mount Etna on an optional experience focused on Sicily’s active volcano. Take in the contrast between cultivated slopes and the mountain that rises above the island’s eastern coast.

Etna’s volcanic terrain has shaped the surrounding landscape and its winemaking traditions for generations. The excursion offers a scenic way to appreciate that relationship. It is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the itinerary does not specify a summit visit or particular stops.

Discover Gozo on an optional island experience with lunch, taking the opportunity to explore beyond Malta’s main island. The itinerary highlights Gozo’s connection to the legend of Calypso, whose cave is traditionally associated with Homer’s Odyssey.

Gozo has its own landscape and cultural character, making the excursion a broader introduction to the Maltese islands. This experience is at additional cost and bookable on tour; the supplied itinerary does not confirm specific sightseeing stops.