Sicily

The south-east of Sicily owes its looks to an earthquake. The one in 1693 brought its towns down, and they were rebuilt wholesale in Baroque. Noto's Corso Vittorio Emanuele, past the cathedral and the carved balconies of Palazzo Nicolaci, is what a town builds when it has to start again. Ragusa went the same way, and in its old quarter, Ragusa Ibla, Ciccio Sultano has held two Michelin stars at Duomo since 2006. Ortigia, Siracusa's old town, keeps older stones. Its morning market trades across from the ruins of the Temple of Apollo, and the Greek theatre and the Roman amphitheatre are a 30 to 40 minute walk away in the Neapolis park.

Where to stay starts with the airport. Palermo's comes with the city: the Cappella Palatina, the Arab-Norman royal chapel built for Roger II in the 1140s, and Ballarò, a street market selling food from around 7.30am. Inland are the Madonie, mountains farmed rather than built for visitors, an hour and a half by road. Catania is for the east, where Taormina and Siracusa are each about an hour away and Noto 80 minutes; Comiso, a smaller airport, puts Ragusa within half an hour. Taormina is the busiest stretch, built up a hillside above the sea. The south coast, around the seven Greek temples of Agrigento's Valley of the Temples, is the quietest and the furthest from either main airport, which may be why.

Etna, at 3,329 metres Europe's highest active volcano, stands over the whole east coast. A cable car climbs its southern slopes from Rifugio Sapienza to 2,500 metres, and from there it is on foot, with a guide. Lower down the same slopes grow Nerello Mascalese, and a tasting among the vines asks less of the knees. In Taormina the Greek theatre, rebuilt by the Romans in the 1st century, has the sea on one side and the volcano on the other.

The months to go are April to June, and September and October, warm enough for the coast without summer's heat or its crowds; on the third Sunday in May, Noto holds its flower festival, the Infiorata. In July and August the coastal towns fill first, Taormina and Cefalù among them, while Etna's slopes and the mountains stay calmer. The ten days around Ferragosto, on 15 August, are the first to book out, and many businesses close for their owners' own holidays, so the week the island is fullest is the week some of it has gone away.