We’ve never been to Sicily before & we’ve always done our own traveling in Italy, renting a car and setting our own itinerary. But, this time, one of my wife’s tennis friends told her that she’d already set up a group of 5 friends for a tour of Sicily, organized by another friend who runs a tour company, and would we like to join in and spend a little over 2 weeks with them, making it a full van of 7 or 8? Sure, why not? So, off we go in 6 weeks for a mid-Sept to early Oct. trip to Sicily. Most of the itinerary, including wine tours, many lunches and half the dinners, are already set & seem just fine. However, we’re coming into Catania a day early and the tour doesn’t include other Catania dinners (we’re based there for several nights), so I’d like to find places for 4 dinners inside Catania or a short taxi ride away (as we won’t have independent transportation). Yep, 4. So far we have Osteria Antica Marina penciled in, as it’s pretty well known (and was recommended on CH several years ago by Maureen Fant, someone whose opinions I respect) & I will research some mentioned in CH threads even older than this to see if they’re still around. Any recent recommendations?
And, while we’re at it, we also have to come up with 2 dinner places in Aragona – yes, Aragona – that’s 16kms. northeast of Agrigento. Since I enjoy ferreting out these kind of places (a vestige from my old CH days), I’m already interrogating every friend I have in Brooklyn whose family comes from Sicily to see what they know or can find out. I’m sure we’ll find places to eat well. Anyone here pass thru Aragona and want to win the esoteric recommendation of the year award?