Santoro Tours

31/08/2026

Just another Saturday night in a little Sicilian hilltop village ❤️🇮🇹

30/08/2026

THE SECRET TO SICILY? It’s all about the timing. 🇮🇹⏰
We were chatting to some travellers this week who'd decided to explore Catania after lunch.
In August.
At about the hottest part of the day. 🥵🔥
They arrived to find it absolutely roasting, the streets fairly quiet and plenty of shops and businesses closed.
Not exactly Catania at her best.
Nino and I were talking about it afterwards and saying how much timing matters when you travel.
You can choose exactly the right place — but go at completely the wrong time.
And suddenly those precious holiday hours you waited all year for are spent wandering around thinking…
“Where IS everybody?” 😂
Sicily has its own rhythm. You need to know it — or at least do a little research or ask a local.
Want to shop? Don't plan it for the middle of the afternoon when many smaller shops and businesses have closed for their pausa pranzo. Sicily is not rearranging its lunch for your itinerary. 😂
Want dinner at 6pm? Good luck! Outside the really touristy areas, you'll be hard pressed to find many Sicilians contemplating dinner before 7.30pm.
Want to wander the streets of Ortigia, Taormina or Catania in August? Early morning or evening is glorious. At 2pm, when the temperature is pushing towards 40°C and the sun is bouncing off the stone buildings… perhaps not.
Mt Etna? We love an early start. Get up there before the clouds roll in and before the procession of tour buses does.
The beach? Again, choose your time. Early morning can be magic — cooler, quieter and without spending half an hour searching for a tiny patch of sand amongst 4,000 umbrellas. 😂
And sometimes choosing the right time starts before you even book the flight.
If you hate heat and crowds, perhaps August isn't your month.
If you want beach weather and long summer evenings, January probably isn't going to fulfil the Sicilian fantasy you've been dreaming about either.
Spring, summer and autumn all give you a very different Sicily. The “best” time depends on what YOU actually want to do.
That's the thing about travel.
We spend so much time researching WHAT to see and WHERE to go.
But sometimes the difference between an ordinary experience and a fabulous one is simply knowing…
WHEN TO GO. ❤️🇮🇹
Because Sicily isn't just about finding the right places.
It's about experiencing them at the right time.

30/08/2026

THE SECRET TO SICILY? It’s all about the timing. 🇮🇹⏰
We were chatting to some travellers this week who'd decided to explore Catania after lunch.
In August.
At about the hottest part of the day. 🥵🔥
They arrived to find it absolutely roasting, the streets fairly quiet and plenty of shops and businesses closed.
Not exactly Catania at her best.
Nino and I were talking about it afterwards and saying how much timing matters when you travel.
You can choose exactly the right place — but go at completely the wrong time.
And suddenly those precious holiday hours you waited all year for are spent wandering around thinking…
“Where IS everybody?” 😂
Sicily has its own rhythm. You need to know it — or at least do a little research or ask a local.
Want to shop? Don't plan it for the middle of the afternoon when many smaller shops and businesses have closed for their pausa pranzo. Sicily is not rearranging its lunch for your itinerary. 😂
Want dinner at 6pm? Good luck! Outside the really touristy areas, you'll be hard pressed to find many Sicilians contemplating dinner before 7.30pm.
Want to wander the streets of Ortigia, Taormina or Catania in August? Early morning or evening is glorious. At 2pm, when the temperature is pushing towards 40°C and the sun is bouncing off the stone buildings… perhaps not.
Mt Etna? We love an early start. Get up there before the clouds roll in and before the procession of tour buses does.
The beach? Again, choose your time. Early morning can be magic — cooler, quieter and without spending half an hour searching for a tiny patch of sand amongst 4,000 umbrellas. 😂
And sometimes choosing the right time starts before you even book the flight.
If you hate heat and crowds, perhaps August isn't your month.
If you want beach weather and long summer evenings, January probably isn't going to fulfil the Sicilian fantasy you've been dreaming about either.
Spring, summer and autumn all give you a very different Sicily. The “best” time depends on what YOU actually want to do.
That's the thing about travel.
We spend so much time researching WHAT to see and WHERE to go.
But sometimes the difference between an ordinary experience and a fabulous one is simply knowing…
WHEN TO GO. ❤️🇮🇹
Because Sicily isn't just about finding the right places.
It's about experiencing them at the right time.

28/08/2026

Ten years from now, you probably won't remember every church you visited in Sicily. But you'll remember how Sicily made you feel. ❤️🇮🇹

You might forget the name of that Baroque church.

You probably won't remember which Greek temple was built when. And after a few glasses of Sicilian wine, frankly, all bets are off. 😂🍷

But you'll remember **how you felt.**

You'll remember standing on Mt Etna looking out across Sicily and thinking… *wow.*

The little restaurant we stumbled across where lunch somehow lasted three hours.

The local who heard you were searching for your grandfather's family and suddenly the whole village seemed to be involved.

Walking the streets where your grandparents once lived.

Or popping into the Comune looking for family records and somehow ending up having coffee with the Mayor.

You'll remember swimming in impossibly blue water, eating the best granita you've ever tasted, laughing over something that was definitely lost in translation, and discovering a tiny Sicilian town you hadn't even heard of before you arrived.

And you'll remember those days when the plan changed completely.

Because some of our favourite travel stories start with…

**“We weren't planning to do this, but…”**

Don't get me wrong. We LOVE a good itinerary. I am a planner after all. 😂

But a perfectly organised holiday can still become a succession of places.

Church. ✔️
Temple. ✔️
Pretty town. ✔️
Next.

And that's never what we've wanted Santoro Tours to be about.

We believe your time in Sicily is too precious for a generic holiday.

We want you to experience the **people, the food, the history, the culture, the stories and the wonderfully unexpected moments** that make Sicily… Sicily.

Because eventually the details blur.

But the feeling doesn't.

**That's why we love what we do. We don't want you to leave Sicily with just a camera roll full of beautiful places.**

**We want you to leave with stories you'll still be telling ten years from now. ❤️**

28/08/2026

26/08/2026

🇮🇹 Planning Sicily?
Save This Post – Our Most Popular Day Tours

If you're based in one area of Sicily (which most travellers are), these are the big days out we run again and again.

No rushing. No big bus groups. Just well-planned Sicilian days that make sense geographically.

Bookmark this for later — you’ll thank yourself when you're itinerary-deep and slightly overwhelmed 😉

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# 📍 Based from Taormina / Catania (East Coast)

🌋 Mt Etna Big Day Out + Winery Lunch

• Cable car + 4WD truck to approx 2750m
• Walk around the highest accessible crater
• Finish with a long winery lunch on Etna
Optional: lava caves or quad bikes

Volcano in the morning. Vino in the afternoon. A very good life choice.

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⛵ Taormina Coastline Boat Day

• Small boat tour
• Swim, snorkel, explore caves
• Optional beach club experience with loungers & umbrellas
This is your “do absolutely nothing and feel excellent about it” day.

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🎬 Godfather Day

• Savoca
• Forza d’Agrò
• Castello degli Schiavi
Movie locations, yes — but also beautiful, timeless Sicilian hill towns.

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🏛 Agrigento Big Day Out

• Valley of the Temples
• Turkish Steps
Ancient Greece meets blinding white cliffs. Worth the drive.

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🌮 Catania Street Food Tour (Half Day – 10am or 6pm)

Markets, arancini, cannoli, stories, organised chaos.
Come hungry and with comfy walking shoes.

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👩‍🍳 Private Cooking Class

At the Santoro Villa, your villa or the chef's home.
Hands-on, relaxed, lots of laughter and wine.

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🏛 Taormina Walking Tour + Greek Theatre

Private guide brings layers of history to life.
Or wander independently — we support both styles.

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🛍 Sicilia Outlet Village

Italian brands, proper outlet pricing.
Yes, Sicily does shopping too.

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🌊 Siracusa & Ortigia Day (from East Coast)

• Archaeological Park
• Ortigia exploration
• Optional private guide
• Optional tuk tuk ride
Elegant, golden and full of sea views.

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🏘 Small Towns Around Taormina

• Castelmola
• Savoca
• Forza d’Agrò
Old-world Sicily. Big views. Slower pace.

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🏺 Piazza Armerina + Villa Romana del Casale + Caltagirone

• Spectacular Roman mosaics (including the famous “bikini girls”)
• Sicily’s ceramic capital
• Majolica staircase in Caltagirone
History, art and countryside all in one beautifully balanced day.

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# 📍 Based from Siracusa

🪨 Necropolis of Pantalica

UNESCO-listed ancient rock tombs carved into dramatic cliffs.
Wild, peaceful and quietly breathtaking.
Perfect for hikers.

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🏛 Valley of the Temples + Turkish Steps
Yes — you can also reach this from Siracusa.

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🏰 Baroque Towns

• Modica
• Ragusa Ibla
• Noto
Golden limestone cities, balconies everywhere, Modica chocolate.

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🎥 Montalbano Day

• Punta Secca (the famous house)
• Police headquarters
• Long seaside lunch
For fans… and lovers of coastal charm.

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# 📍 Based from Palermo / Cefalù

🏙 Palermo + Monreale

Private guide + time to wander independently.
Layered, complex, magnificent.

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🏛 Segesta + Zingaro Reserve + Castellammare del Golfo

Temple, nature reserve, coastal beauty.

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🌊 West Coast Day

• Trapani
• Salt pans
• Erice by cable car
Big views, sea air, medieval magic.

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🇮🇹 Ancestral Town Days

For those wanting to visit their family’s town.
We help with research, translation and gentle navigating of local archives.
These are often the most emotional and special days of all.

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Sicily is bigger than most people think.
Staying in one base and doing well-planned day trips is often the smartest way to see it properly.

Save this for your planning — and when you're ready, we’ll help you map it out without the stress.

Catherine & Nino 🇮🇹✨

25/08/2026

THIS IS WHY PEOPLE KEEP COMING BACK TO SICILY… ❤️🇮🇹

There are some places that stop feeling like somewhere you visit and somehow become part of your story.

Over the years, we've spent some pretty magical nights at the Greek Theatre in Taormina — incredible artists, summer sunsets, Etna in the distance and music filling a theatre that's been standing for more than 2,000 years.

Seriously… does it get much better than that?

These are the moments that made us fall completely in love with Sicily.

And that's really WHY we do what we do.

We want our travellers to experience more than a list of places they've ticked off.

We want them to go home with moments, stories and memories they'll still be talking about years later.

Because that's the Sicily we love. ❤️

We do private customised tours around Sicily. Just reach out.... waiting for you!

24/08/2026

SOME PLACES HOLD YOUR MEMORIES ❤️🇮🇹

This weekend we sat in the Greek Theatre in Taormina watching Il Volo sing Lucio Dalla’s beautiful Caruso.

And suddenly I remembered…

We sat in that very same theatre in 2010 and watched Lucio Dalla himself perform.

Sixteen years later, same ancient theatre, same extraordinary setting, and his music filling it again.

That’s the thing about Sicily for us.

It’s not just somewhere we work or somewhere we take people on tours. It has become part of our story.

We’ve been coming here together since 2009. We’ve collected memories, friendships, favourite places, long lunches, concerts and countless “how lucky are we?” moments.

And that’s really the WHY behind Santoro Tours.

We don’t just want you to see Sicily.
We want you to leave with your own stories to tell. ❤️