Travelling to Sicily with Children
Why Sicily?
Sicily is a beautiful island to explore and has plenty to keep you busy, not least a trip to the wonderful theme park Etnaland. We visited in June 2019 and this blog will help provide ideas on what you can do to keep you busy whilst travelling to Sicily with children.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean, on the tip of the toe of Italy. It’s home to approximately 5 million residents and famed for the Mafia and Mount Etna.
Where did we stay?
We found a fantastic villa through HomeAway (we tend to find really good quality, big villas through this website) based in the south east of the Island, near Ipsica. It had 5 beautiful ensuite bedrooms which was more than enough for the 5 adults and 2 children in our group. We paid 2994.80 euros for the week.
There was a cot and a highchair for our youngest which is always hugely appreciated. A huge pool, tennis court and table tennis kept us all entertained as well as TVs in all the bedrooms. There was also a very simple plastic wendy house in the garden – but it was probably the highlight for our youngest daughter, she LOVED it.
We flew with Easyjet from London Gatwick to Catania and the drive was about 1.5 hours to the villa. We take car seats with us for the girls, as experience has taught us that relying on car rental companies to provide decent seats, or ones that are simple to fit, is rare. So taking our own means we have the reassurance of safety and being able to fit them easily. See the post on travel essentials for more information.
Upon arrival there was no electricity in the area, including in our villa. This meant no air conditioning or fridge but the owners quickly got a generator hooked up. This was running for the first two days before the electricity was sorted. Generally I don’t mind if there are issues as long as the owners/agents do their best to sort them out and we really can’t fault them for this.
When we arrived there was also a full spread of homemade food ready for us – something we all appreciated after a very long day on the road!
What to do in Sicily with Children
There is so much to do when travelling to Sicily with children. Other than the obvious favourite pass time – the swimming pool, the top day trip we did was to Etnaland, a gorgeous theme park just west of Catania and in the shadows of Mount Etna.
Etnaland Theme Park
We were in two minds about whether to brave Etnaland as it was so hot but I’m so pleased we did as we had a brilliant day out. It cost 25 euros per adult and our eldest was 20 euros (under 1.4 metres). Our youngest got in free (under 1 metre).
Our primary experience of theme parks is of those in the UK where you generally have to queue for rides, sometimes for a very long time. So imagine our delight when we basically walked onto every ride without waiting, managing 17 rides in a 4 hour period with ease 🙂
The park was clean and nicely laid out with plenty of shade and variety of rides. It was mostly geared towards young children – our 4 year old was probably their main target market. But there was a few rides for adults that Dave and I went on (individually of course!)
The self service restaurant provided tasty food at a reasonable price – pasta, bread, fruit salad and so on. There was also some huts serving ice cream and the delicious Sicilian Granita (a refreshing flavoured slushy ice drink).
There was also a water park there but this doesn’t open until July (at which time the theme park and water park start opening in the evenings instead of the daytime, to avoid the heat).
What else?
We also visited the towns of Syracuse, Noto and Regusa – all stunning old towns full of lovely little shops and restaurants. Because it was so hot we couldn’t really stroll around exploring but we were glad we went to see the lovely buildings and scenery.
The food in Sicily was good reliable Italian fare – generally Pizza and Pasta, or fish if that is your preference. We didn’t go to any restaurants that offered specific children’s menus so we either got the girls one dish to share or asked for them to do a smaller portion for them. In one restaurant they made the girls pizza in the shape of a rabbit which went down a treat!
Summary
Travelling to Sicily with children makes for a fantastic holiday. The villa was one of the best we’ve ever stayed in and Etnaland was one of our top family days out to date.
However, Sicily has SO much to see and places to explore and because of the heat, and the buggy, we were limited in how much of these things we could see. We will go back in the future, outside of summer and once we don’t need a buggy!
