Wow, our first trip to Sicily was a complete blast!  Sicily marks our 3rd and latest sailing destination.  This terrific group has now been to all 3 of our sailing destinations:  Amalfi Coast, Croatia and Sicily. (Next up Greece?!)  Thanks to our LOCAL Sicilian Skipper, Daniele Egitto, this trip was totally dialed.  We also had two people in our group that have been on OVER 10 Mountain Spirits journeys! We can’t thank them enough for their continued support of us and in their vision for new trips. Ok…moving on…

Our trip started off with a fun hike up Mt Etna (10,770′) (oh and not seen above-that is Salina).  We were lucky to see some of the upper crater (which was active prior to our arrival in Sicily…yikes) but the most incredible part was hearing the raging lava bubbling up below us.  It sounded like really loud sheet lightning over and over again.  Fog prevented us from seeing this (which was probably good). We stayed at a quaint mountain refuge after our hike and drank a bunch of Aperol Spritz and played cards.  Fun!  After Etna, we hiked near stunning Taormina (aka The Godfather turf) and then we boarded our Lagoon Catamaran Yacht and sailed out in the Aeolian Islands.

While you may think this is Etna (above) it is not!  It is STROMBOLI and it is one of the two active volcanic islands of the Aeolies in Sicily (the other is Vulcano-we hiked there, also).  On Stromboli we did a FULL MOON HIKE to the summit of the Stromboli (3000’sea to summit) in order to witness this amazing sight of lava shooting up out of the craters!  (PS:  Not my photo).  This is one of the more magical hiking experiences one can do on earth!

The water in Sicily has been called “Bahama Blue” for a reason (refer to photo above).  Here we have lovely Hey Jude of Sun Valley via Australia swimming with the endless colorful fishies found in the Tyrrhenian Sea of Sicily.  (Check that out, did you know that the Med is divided into suburbs and by Sicily it is called the Tyrrhenian Sea?)  PS: Sounds like Tier ane ean 😉

For those of you who like BIG BIG hikes, Sicily is the place.  The volcanic nature of each island offers big vertical with wildly different landscape and vegetation.  As per usual, we bring along an SUP (Stand Up Paddle board) for fun.  Here we are using it for entertainment value and not a work out…

Since Sicily is so close to MALTA, we boogied to Malta by ferry for a few days, also, but that is an entirely different story.  Read our Malta Blog Post for photos and scoop!

Thanks for reading!  Email us if you want to do this amazing trip with our incredible Sicilian Skipper, Daniele Egitto!