Grand Tour Of Sicily, From Palermo To Taormina

The beginning of your eight days wine tour in Sicily, will start at Palermo airport.  Transfer to the hotel.  Ready to discover Palermo with a guided tour of the city.  Welcome dinner with presentation of the trip and introduction to Sicilian wines.

We will leave the hotel after breakfast to the Marsala region. The route between Trapani and Marsala is the famous salt rout, or via del sale, where the salt work of Phoenician times are found and from which salt is extracted by hand until today. There you can see several windmills that are used to draw water from the sea and produce salt and mountains or salt tumuli covered in terracotta tiles to prevent them from dissolving when it rains. In our way to the first winery, we will stop in one of the most famous Salt Pans of Sicily. We will have a private guided tour of our salt pans of the nature reserve of Trapani and Paceco, which is much more than a common excursion… In these places you can taste history and contact with an incredible environment, where nature and man live in perfect symbiosis. The mills once used to raise the water through the use of the wind, together with the colourful salt pans, located in the south of the city of Trapani, represent a unique landscape throughout the Mediterranean basin. During the visit we will explain the history of our places. The structure of the traditional salt works, the phases of the production cycle and, during the extraction periods, the hand harvest of the precious whole sea salt will be illustrated. Specialised personnel, directly the operators of the salt pans, are here to answer all your questions and curiosities. Finished our visit to the Salt Pans, we will make our move to the first winery of our seven days grand tour. Marsala Wine Route, in the western part of the island, one of the most important wine area of Sicily, where the famous Marsala sweet wine is produced. In Marsala, we will visit two wineries, with a private tour of the cellars and with lunch in one of them. The first winery is with more than a century in the wine business. The winery has many wines made with native varieties such as Inzolia, Catarratto, Zibbibo and Nero d’Avola and also international varieties. Here we will have a private tour of the winery and the whole wine making process will be explained, taste different wines with a typical lunch. Second winery, is the oldest winery in Marsala, in production since 1833. Warm weather, mineral soils and sea breezes have contributed to the production of Marsala for 200 years, having the opportunity to taste more of the unbelievable wines of Marsala area. Night in Marsala and dinner in our hotel wine resort.

After breakfast at the hotel our seven days grand tour, continues in the direction of Sambuca di Sicilia. Sambuca di Sicilia is an Italian wine DOC on the island of Sicily, covering red, rose and white (rosso, rosato and bianco) wines from a small area 10 miles (16km) inland from Sciacca, on the south coast of the island. The DOC was introduced in September 1995 and is named after the commune of that name, not to be confused with the anise-flavored liqueur, almost equidistant from Palermo to the north and Agrigento town to the south-east, Sambuca di Sicilia lies in a shallow, roughly parabolic depression among the western hills of the Agrigento province. In this area we will visit a beautiful winery, founded in 1995 on the shores of Lake Arancio and surrounded by vineyards and olive trees.  This was the first family winery that now has several in Sicily. In our visit to the winery, the whole wine making process will be explained, tasting different wines with a light meal. Once we finish our lunch, we will continue to Agrigento, to visit the valley of the temples of Agrigento, where we will meet our local guide. Agrigento is a city on the southern coast of Sicily. It is renowned as the site of the ancient Greek city of Akragas also known asAgrigentum, one of the leading cities of Magna Grecia during the golden age of Ancient Greece.  Now excavated and partially restored, they constitute some of the largest and best-preserved ancient Greek buildings outside of Greece itself. World Heritage because the Doric temples, among which stands out the tempo of the Concord with its facade of 6 columns and one of the bes tpreserved of antiquity. Night in Agrigento and dinner in our 4/5 starts hotel.