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Catania CarHire
Catania · Italy
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Catania · Italy
Driving from Catania: Etna, Taormina and Syracuse in a Hire Car
Three days out, three different roads, and three parking problems that are easy once somebody tells you the answer.
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No credit card or low deposit. Full insurance from €5/day.
Etna in about an hour
Taormina 50 km north
Syracuse 65 km south
74 cars in the listing
Three days out, and two longer ones, at a glance
A hire car in Catania earns its keep on the days you leave the city, and the three that almost everyone does are a volcano, a hill town and an island. They point in three different directions, which is the useful thing to know first: you cannot chain them, and each one wants its own morning.
| Where | The road out | Each way | Where the car ends up |
|---|---|---|---|
| Etna, the south side | Up through Nicolosi to Rifugio Sapienza, paved the whole way | About an hour | The car park at the refuge, roughly 1,900 m up |
| Taormina | The A18 north, about 50 km, tolled | Under an hour outside August | Lumbi or Porta Catania garage, then the shuttle or the lift |
| Syracuse and Ortigia | The motorway south, about 65 km | About an hour | The Talete garage, or the mainland side and walk the bridge |
| Noto, Modica and Ragusa | South-west into the baroque Val di Noto | A full day rather than an afternoon | The car parks below each old centre, never inside one |
| Agrigento | West across the island, about 165 km | Around two and a half hours | The car parks at the Valley of the Temples |
Cars that do all three without complaint
None of these days asks anything unusual of a car, and a small hatchback parks in places a bigger car has to drive past. Here are three of the cheapest currently free in Catania.
€/day
Etna: up through Nicolosi to 1,900 metres
This is the one people worry about and the one that turns out to be easiest. The road leaves Catania, climbs through Nicolosi and keeps climbing, and after roughly an hour it stops at Rifugio Sapienza on the south side. It is paved the whole way. The difficulty is not the driving. It is that the top of the mountain is a different country from the coast you left.
The road ends at the refuge, and so does the car
Rifugio Sapienza is where the tarmac finishes. There is a large car park, and in summer you may end up a few hundred metres back along the verge with everyone else. Park, take the warm layer out of the boot, and leave the car there for the whole visit. Nothing above this point is a road you can take a hire car onto.
1,900 m
and it feels like it
It is cold at the top in any season. People arrive in shorts in July and buy a fleece at the refuge for the price of the day out. Take a jacket and closed shoes from the hotel, whatever the coast is doing.
Going higher than the refuge
The cable car runs up from Sapienza, and 4x4 buses with a guide carry on above it toward the craters. Both are paid separately, both run on the mountain conditions rather than a timetable you can rely on, and either can stop in bad weather. Plan the day so the drive is worth it even if they do not run.
Go in the morning, come down before dark
The summit clouds over through the afternoon often enough that an early start is the best decision of the day. Coming down is a long descent, so use the gears rather than riding the brakes, and keep daylight for it. Piano Provenzana on the north side is a separate approach and a separate day.
Taormina: park at the bottom and let the town come to you
Taormina is about 50 km north on the A18, which is a toll motorway and the only sensible way to get there. The drive is short and uneventful. What goes wrong, for a great many visitors every day, is the last kilometre. The town sits on a shoulder of hillside above the sea, the streets are narrow and largely given over to people on foot, and driving up to look for a space has no reward at the end of it. There is no space.
The answer is to stop before you get there. The Lumbi garage sits on the approach and runs a shuttle bus up into the centre. The Porta Catania garage is at the other end and puts you beside the gate of the same name, and there is a lift connecting the lower level to the town. Either one costs a few euros for the day, and either one turns a bad hour into a five minute ride. Pick whichever you reach first and do not be tempted past it by a sign that looks promising.
Once the car is parked the day is walking: the Greek theatre, Corso Umberto end to end, and the cable car down to the beach at Mazzaro. Give it an afternoon and an evening rather than two hours. It is the only one of these three trips where leaving after dark is genuinely easy, because the A18 home is a motorway rather than a mountain road.
South: Ortigia first, then as far as you have days for
Everything south of Catania is flatter and faster than the mountain, and the roads are the easiest driving on the island. Syracuse is the day everybody does. The other two are what the car is really for.
About 65 km south, and an island at the end of it
The motorway south takes about an hour and the signs say Siracusa the whole way. Understand before you arrive that the old town is not in the city: it is Ortigia, a small island joined to the mainland by bridges, and that is where the cathedral and the Fonte Aretusa are. Park on the mainland side or in the Talete garage at the northern tip of the island, then walk over. The bridge takes two minutes. Driving further in means threading lanes barely wider than the car, and you will come straight back out again.
The baroque Val di Noto, south-west and inland
Noto, Modica and Ragusa were rebuilt in honey coloured stone after the 1693 earthquake and they are the reason a lot of people hire a car here at all. They are strung out along provincial roads rather than a motorway, so this is a full day and not an afternoon bolted onto Syracuse. Two of the three is a better plan than all three. Park below each old centre where the car parks are signed and walk up; every one of these towns is built on a hill and none of them wants your car at the top.
About 165 km west, for the temples
The Valley of the Temples is the longest of these days and the one most often regretted as a day trip, because it is roughly two and a half hours of inland road each way. Leave very early, or better, make it the night you sleep somewhere other than Catania. There is parking at the site, and the temples are best in the first or last hours of light.
What to settle before the first morning
The order to drive them
Etna first, on your clearest morning, because the weather decides that day and nothing else. Syracuse second, since it is the easiest driving. Taormina last, because it is the one worth staying into the evening for and the motorway home is the kindest road of the three.
Tolls and fuel
The A18 north to Taormina is a toll motorway and the amounts involved are small. Keep a few coins and a card in the door pocket rather than hunting through a bag at the barrier. Fill up on the edge of town before a long day rather than on the way out of a tourist car park.
Where the car sleeps in Catania
The historic centre around Via Etnea and Piazza Duomo is a camera enforced limited traffic zone, so the car goes in a garage or a lot outside the line and stays there between trips. The boundary, the cameras and the parking outside them are covered on the Catania ZTL page.
Which car, honestly
Any of them. There are 36 compacts and 27 crossovers on this listing and none of the 74 cars is four-wheel-drive, which tells you how little the mountain asks. Smaller is better for Ortigia and the baroque towns; a crossover buys you height over a kerb and nothing else.
Catania fleet file ·
Every car, opened up
Insurance options on every file: TPL, CDW, SCDW and Full CDW. Final rental terms are confirmed by the operator at the last step.
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Questions drivers ask about these three days
Yes, and you do not need anything special. The road climbs through Nicolosi and is paved all the way to Rifugio Sapienza at about 1,900 metres, so a small hatchback does it comfortably. Not one of the 74 cars on this listing is four-wheel-drive, which answers the question on its own. Above the refuge the surface stops being a road, and that is what the cable car and the 4x4 buses are for.
Reckon on under an hour each way outside August, and yes, the A18 is a toll motorway. The distance is only about 50 km, so the toll is small. What costs people time is the end: Taormina sits above the sea and is largely pedestrian, so budget twenty minutes for parking and the shuttle rather than assuming you arrive at the door.
In Taormina, the Lumbi garage on the approach or the Porta Catania garage, and then the shuttle bus or the lift into the centre. Do not drive up into the town looking for a space, because the streets are narrow, mostly pedestrian and full of people who are walking rather than watching for you. In Syracuse, Ortigia is an island and the old town is on it: park in the Talete garage or on the mainland side and walk over the bridge, which takes two minutes and is the pleasant part of the arrival.
You can, and it is a long day. Etna belongs in the morning, because the summit clouds over later, and Taormina absorbs an afternoon and an evening without effort. The two are not on the same road, so you come back down to the coast before heading north on the A18. If you have three days, give each trip its own.
Not if you drive one at home. The climb is steady rather than steep in hairpins, and engine braking on the way down is welcome. If you have not driven a manual in years, the mountain is not the place to remember how: the listing holds 27 automatics against 47 manuals, so filter for one when you book rather than hoping at the counter.
Three days out, one car
Put your dates in and the list narrows to what a supplier in Catania will really hand over, with the gearbox, the deposit rule and the day rate attached to each car rather than promised in general.
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