Holiday to Sicily in Apr 2026: Day 3 – Palermo to Isola delle Femmine

By Nige on April 15, 2026 at 12:14 pm
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to Sicily in Apr 2026 Category: Travel
Tags: Holidays | Italy | Mercure | Palermo

Considering we had the window open and the road was really noisy, we both slept pretty well!

Once Vick was awake, we quickly came up with a plan to adjust our holiday to address the challenges that we faced.

Although our primary aim was experiencing Mount Etna, being on the other side of the island, it was just going to be too far for Vick to drive and for her to still enjoy our time away.

With that basic conclusion agreed, it became fairly obvious that we should curtail our holiday to Sicily for the time being and head home as soon as was feasible.

To fly home that day, would cost an extortionate amount of money (800 Euros +) per person for an economy seat.

The earliest I could find a reward seat was Friday and there appeared to be lots of seats available in business class, so I booked those as a starter.

In reviewing the other elements of our BA Holiday, all of the rooms were non-refundable/non-changeable, so we had to find a hotel for 2 nights, preferably not too far from the airport.

We found the AR Palace Hotel on the coast at Isola delle Femmine, where we booked a junior suite with a sea view.

Hopefully, it was going to be a nice and relaxing end to our shortened holiday. We were both happy with that outcome.

I contacted BA Holidays to inform them of what we were doing and the impact on the holiday booking. They confirmed they would email the hotels and advise them of our change in plan.

We then headed off to breakfast in the main hotel building, which ended up being an interesting experience with one guest vomiting on one of the tables.

The food was ok, but nothing much to write home about.

From there, we decided we would have another wander around the streets of Palermo. Although it had rained overnight and we had enjoyed the delights of thunder and lightning, it was very clear and sunny first thing in the morning.

We started off with Palermo Cathedral, which was where the latest series of Race Across the World started from, just a few weeks ago. It was clearly the centrepiece of Palermo and a historic building that the locals took great pride in.

We ended up down at the harbour, which was lovely. It really gave us a positive feel of Palermo.

But before long it was heading towards check out time, which was fairly early at 10:30am. We struggled to get the hotel staff to provide the car to us. We didn’t want to get involved in trying to drive the car out of a really tight garage up a steep slope! They gave in eventually.

We got on our way, heading towards our new hotel for the next two nights. The drive was nice and easy along major roads, and Vick was a little more comfortable in driving us around.

We arrived in Isola delle Femmine, which is a headland on the north coast of Sicily just before midday. Our suite wasn’t quite ready, but we received an extensive tour around the resort, which included numerous pins to get through barriers and to get into our room.

Whilst we waited for our suite to be ready, we walked east down the coast. The place was clearly not ready for the peak period with lots of building work under way. The majority of shops and restaurants were closed, so it really wasn’t that great a place to be.

However, in the context of the challenging situation we were in, it was heaven. Quiet, peaceful and the sun was out!

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Holiday to Sicily in Apr 2026