Malta & Sicily

Fly into Malta International Airport where your Tour Manager will be waiting to meet you, and transfer to your hotel in the delightful Qawra area of popular St Paul’s Bay. Depending on the time you arrive, you may have time for a stroll along the promenade, looking out to St Paul’s Island on which the Apostle was once shipwrecked, before sitting down to your first dinner at your hotel.

The first of your tour’s included excursions explores the island capital, Valletta. You’ll begin with a visit to the award-winning Malta Experience audio-visual presentation, and also take in the Auberge de Castille - former home to the Knights of St John and now the Prime Minister’s office - and the colonnades, fountains and shaded walkways of the lovely Upper Barrakka Gardens, from where the strategic value of the city’s Grand Harbour becomes plainly clear.

Rest and relax in the hotel and its surroundings, or perhaps join today’s optional excursion to Malta’s smaller sister isle, Gozo. After the short ferry crossing to quaint Mgarr, you'll spend the day exploring this fascinating place, where the island capital, Victoria, is watched over by its fortified citadel, and the landscape is dotted with prehistoric Neolithic temples and burial mounds and some delightful coastal villages.

On today’s full-day excursion you’ll travel inland to Mdina, the ancient, fortified former Maltese capital, to explore its beautiful Silent City of narrow streets and stone-built houses. The tour also includes a visit to the grotto at Rabat, where Bellini’s statue of St Paul depicts the Apostle’s shipwreck on the island.

You’ll have an early start, this morning, as you board the fast catamaran for the 90-minute crossing to the Sicilian port of Pozzallo. From here we’ll head a short way up the coast to Syracuse. Once one of the centres of the ancient world and home to the inventor Archimedes.

The city sits on an island, upon which the city’s great temples of Athena and Apollo once stood, and which still echoes with history and fascination in the intertwined streets of its old town, its harbour and piazza, its Cathedral and Archaeological Museum. You can still see remnants of ancient buildings built into the city’s cathedral or surrounded by tranquil gardens.

After a short orientation tour you’ll have time explore under your own steam, or perhaps enjoy a typically Sicilian lunch, before our coach carries you further up the Sicilian coast to your second hotel, in Giardini-Naxos.

Today you're free to enjoy the delights of Giardini Naxos and its surroundings. Set beneath the lovely hill town of Taormina, looking out over the Ionian Sea, this colourful beachside resort boasts a seafront promenade lined with cafes and restaurants. A low-key archaeological museum and some excavations mark the site of Sicily’s first Greek colony, and a local bus connects the four resorts collectively known as Taormina-Mare with the hill town above. The twinkling lights of the town atop the hill add a special enchantment to the setting, each evening.

Surrounded by a vast natural park, Mount Etna is Europe’s highest active volcano, and the views it offers, especially on clear days, are spectacular. Flower-decked Taormina is no less alluring, its Greek Theatre – cut into the mountainside and used by the Romans for gladiatorial contests – competing for the audiences' attention with the astonishing views across the sea and along the coast to Etna.

Step into a landscape made famous by one of Hollywood’s most famous films, as you journey to the unspoilt village of Savoca - the location used as Corleone in The Godfather trilogy. Bar Vitelli is still open, and virtually unchanged since Al Pacino’s Michael Corleone visited, and you’ll find cinematic memories everywhere, including St Nicholas Church (setting for Corleone’s wedding to Apollonia) and in nearby Forza D’Agro. Your day will also include the chance to learn about the Sicilian Mafia and the fight against organised crime on the island.

Spend the last day of your holiday relaxing in Taormina Mare, or perhaps to join our last optional excursion and discover Agrigento and the Valley of Temples. This vast area was once the great city of Akragas, and it boasts some of the finest and best-preserved Ancient Greek ruins outside of Greece. Described as "the most beautiful city of mortals" Akragas and its magnificent temples were laid out on a ridge on which an acropolis once stood, and from which the wonderful medieval town of Agrigento now surveys the scene.

Say goodbye to your Sicilian hosts, today, and board our coach for the transfer to Catania Airport where you’ll catch your flight home.