The best hidden towns you can reach by train that eat well in Sicilia
Sicilian cooking changes every few kilometres, and the railway is a decent way to taste the difference. Inland, in the Madonie and the Nebrodi, the register is mountain food: pork, wild mushrooms, chestnuts, manna tapped from ash trees, sheep's cheese pressed in reed baskets. Around Etna the lava soil gives pistachios, blood oranges and the pale red wines made from Nerello Mascalese, poured in stone cellars built from the same black rock as the houses. On the Ionian coast it turns marine again, swordfish and anchovy and almond granita taken standing up at a bar counter in the heat of early September.
Most visitors arriving on the island go straight to Palermo and then to Siracusa, and both deserve the traffic they get. Ortigia in particular fills from spring through October, its market lanes shoulder to shoulder by mid-morning and its tables booked days ahead. The trouble is not that these places are bad. It is that the food there is cooked for people who will not come back, and the room around it is entirely made of other travellers.
The same coastline and the same volcano continue past them. The Circumetnea and the Palermo-Messina line still stop at small stations in towns where the restaurant is run by the family that owns it and the wine list is local by default rather than by concept. These are the smaller stops, places with a Norman keep or a Greek theatre or a Baroque main street and a kitchen a guide has thought worth naming. All of them can be reached without a car, which in Sicilia is worth more than it sounds.
Of the 61 communes we have mapped in Sicilia, 17 qualify as towns you can reach by train that eat well: we have confirmed each is reachable without a car, and a dining guide has named a table in each. This list is the hidden ones, 8 in all, ordered smallest first. The smallest, Castiglione di Sicilia, has 2,903 residents.
Elsewhere in the catalogue: The best towns inside a nature park that eat well in Sicilia and The 9 best towns inside a nature park that you can reach by train in Sicilia.
Castiglione di Sicilia
Why visit Castiglione di Sicilia
The town looks down the Alcantara river valley between Randazzo and Taormina, its position fixed by Norman count Roger I, who documented it in 1092 as Castrileonis, the great castle. That name still fits the territory more than the town itself: the commune's boundary runs uphill from the historic centre all the way to the summit of Etna, taking in the north-east crater, so the same municipality holds a huddle of streets at 621 meters and a stretch of active volcano above it.
The hills below the centre are the heart of the Etna DOC. Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio grow on the volcanic soils around the village, with Carricante carrying the whites, and bottles from Cottanera, Passopisciaro, Tenuta delle Terre Nere and the Alcantara producers all ship from here.
Twenty minutes downhill the Alcantara has cut its gorges through the same lava that feeds those vineyards, basalt walls shaped by water where the fields above are shaped by the grape. Town, castle, vineyard and gorge read as one continuous volcanic system, worked over centuries into a fortress, a wine region and a river cut.
Cave Ox, La Riserva Bistrot have been named by a guide.
What to see in Castiglione di Sicilia
- Castello di Lauria. The fortress stands on its basalt outcrop above the town, its walls carrying the weight of two rebuildings by Ruggero di Lauria's crews. The rooms now hold the Enoteca Regionale for eastern Sicily, so the same stone that once watched for approach up the valley now stores the bottles made from the vines below it.
- Cuba Bizantina di Santa Domenica. Small Byzantine cube-shaped church, seventh to ninth century, in the rural outskirts of the commune, one of the oldest surviving structures in the Etna area.
- Gole dell'Alcantara. Basalt gorges carved by the Alcantara river through prismatic lava columns, around twenty minutes downhill from the centro storico.
How to get to Castiglione di Sicilia
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Catania is roughly 49 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October are the working months on Etna nord. Vineyard tours start in June, harvest runs late September through mid-October on the higher contrade, and the slopes turn red and gold into early November. July and August on Etna are bearable at 621 meters: nights drop to seventeen degrees, far cooler than Catania.
Castelbuono
Why visit Castelbuono
Castelbuono sits at 423 meters on the northern slope of the Madonie, an hour inland from Cefalù and the Tyrrhenian coast. The town developed in the fourteenth century around the castle built by Count Francesco I Ventimiglia in 1317 on a pre-existing twelfth-century watchtower; the Ventimiglia were among the most influential families in medieval Sicily, and their court held here for generations.
The castle today houses the Museo Civico Francesco Minà Palumbo, with natural history, sacred art and archaeology from the Madonie territory. The Matrice Vecchia, the old mother church begun in 1362 under Francesco II Ventimiglia, mixes Roman-Gothic, Catalan-Gothic and Chiaramontane elements, with a 1520 polyptych attributed to Antonello De Saliba (nephew of Antonello da Messina) on the main altar and a fully frescoed crypt below the presbytery.
The town keeps the last working manna industry in Europe, the sweet sap collected by cutting Madonie ash trees in summer. Pasticceria Fiasconaro, founded here in 1953, now ships panettone and Ypsigro lines worldwide and opened a flagship in Manhattan in 2025.
In August the village runs the Ypsigrock indie festival, one of Italy's longest-running.
Nangalarruni, Palazzaccio have been named by a guide.
What to see in Castelbuono
- Castello dei Ventimiglia. Fourteenth-century castle built in 1317 by Francesco I Ventimiglia on a twelfth-century watchtower, now home to the Museo Civico Francesco Minà Palumbo.
- Chiesa Matrice Vecchia. Mother church begun in 1362, mixing Roman-Gothic, Catalan-Gothic and Chiaramontane styles, with a 1520 polyptych by Antonello De Saliba.
- Cripta della Matrice Vecchia. Crypt under the presbytery of the old mother church, walls fully frescoed with the life, Passion and Resurrection of Christ.
How to get to Castelbuono
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Palermo is roughly 74 minutes away by road.
Our tip
April through June and September through November are the working months in Castelbuono. The chestnut and beech woods of the Madonie turn in October. The Ypsigrock indie festival fills the centro for four days in mid-August, the only week the town runs at coastal capacity. Festeggiamenti in onore di Sant'Anna a Castelbuono falls in July.
Palazzolo Acreide
Why visit Palazzolo Acreide
The Greek city was founded by Syracuse in 664 BC as an inland defensive outpost, set to guard the Iblei plateau on the route between Syracuse and Gela. That siting explains why the town carries a Greek substrate no other Val di Noto town has: the theatre, the quarries turned catacombs, and the rock sanctuary all belong to the outpost, not to the later town built above it.
The quarries themselves, the latomie, were cut for stone and only afterward pressed into service as Christian burial places, and the surrounding city walls and necropolis extend the ancient site well past the theatre alone. The 1693 earthquake destroyed the medieval settlement outright, collapsing three-quarters of its buildings and killing sixty percent of the population.
The rebuilding over the following fifty years laid out wide, regular streets and raised palazzi in honey-coloured limestone, with churches given concave façades and elaborate stairways. Beyond the two great set-pieces already named, the Basilica di San Pietro and the Palazzo Iudica-Cafici with its stone-carved balconies round out the Baroque core that UNESCO's inscription emphasizes, and together the two churches, the basilica, and the palazzo form the honey-coloured centre that sits directly above the buried Greek outpost.
Palazzolo also holds a place on the Borghi più belli d'Italia list, and its table carries the same plateau character noted above, extended by pasta with broccolo siciliano and ricotta salata alongside the sausage and truffle. The Festa di San Paolo in late June, with fireworks on the night of the 28th and 29th, is the year's main event.
What sits on the plateau today is a town built twice: once as a Greek outpost guarding a route, once by survivors rebuilding after the ground gave way, and the lower ancient layer and the upper Baroque layer have never fully merged into one story.
Andrea, Lo Scrigno dei Sapori, Trattoria del Gallo and 1 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Palazzolo Acreide
- Teatro Greco di Akrai. 600 seats cut into the hillside, acoustics intact, the theatre is still used for summer Greek-drama festivals staged in its original setting rather than a reconstruction.
- I Santoni (Cybele rock sanctuary). The figures sit carved directly into the cliff face, cult images of Cybele set into rock rather than housed in a museum, just outside the modern centre.
- Chiesa di San Sebastiano + Chiesa di San Paolo (UNESCO). Concave façades, curved staircases climbing to the doors, organ-equipped twin towers. Built roughly a decade apart in the rebuilding years, they read as a matched pair from the street below.
How to get to Palazzolo Acreide
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Siracusa is roughly 47 minutes away by road.
Our tip
Palazzolo Acreide is best April–June and September–October. The Iblei plateau at 670m stays much cooler than Sicily's coast — summer 28-30°C vs the coast's 35°C+. The Festa di San Paolo (28-29 June) with its fireworks is the year's headline.
Randazzo
Why visit Randazzo
Randazzo sits at 750 meters on the northern foot of Etna, seventy kilometers northwest of Catania along the Alcantara valley. Byzantine in origin, Swabian and medieval in character, the town has three great churches that mark its three historic quarters, once inhabited by communities that spoke different tongues: the Latins in Santa Maria, the Greeks in San Nicolò, and the Lombards in San Martino.
In 1210 Frederick II of Hohenstaufen and his young wife Constance of Aragon sheltered here from the plague in Palermo; Randazzo became, after Palermo and Messina, one of the most populous towns on the island. The architecture is lava: Santa Maria Assunta, begun in the thirteenth century, has a façade entirely in black volcanic stone with three polygonal apses shaped as towers and Catalan-Gothic side portals.
The forty-one-meter bell tower of San Martino, called one of the most beautiful in Sicily, has stood since the thirteenth century.
Veneziano, San Giorgio e il Drago have been named by a guide.
What to see in Randazzo
- Basilica di Santa Maria Assunta. Thirteenth-century basilica in black lava stone with three polygonal apses shaped as towers and fifteenth-century Catalan-Gothic side portals.
- Chiesa di San Martino. Church of Swabian origin from the thirteenth century with a forty-one-meter bell tower in four storeys, anchor of the Lombard quarter.
- Chiesa di San Nicolò. Largest of the three quarter churches, repeatedly rebuilt; the fourteenth-century bell tower fell in the 1693 earthquake.
How to get to Randazzo
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Catania is roughly 60 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season. At 750 meters Randazzo stays cooler than the Catanese coast even in August; the harvest in the Etna Nord vineyards runs September into October. November through April is quiet; snow falls on the upper slopes through winter and the town gets occasional dustings.
Taormina
Why visit Taormina
The town sits at 204 meters on the rock above the coast, on the Ionian shore halfway between Messina and Catania. The Siculi welcomed the survivors of the Greek colony of Naxos in 358 BC after Dionysius of Syracuse destroyed it, and Andromachus refounded them as Tauromenium on the height above.
Augustus later made it a Roman colony, deporting much of the population and resettling it with Roman families. The centro sits below the fortress and above the sea: the Arab-Norman stronghold occupies the rock at 397 meters, while further up the hillside the frazione of Castelmola hangs at 884, both looking down on the same stretch of coast the theatre faces.
The small island reserve lies at the opposite end of that vertical arrangement, at sea level below the cliff, reached by cable car or path from the town above. A place built in tiers, from the beach at the base to the fortress on the rock to the village above that, all of it oriented toward the same view of the volcano and the water that made a nineteenth-century travel writer's description enough to start a tourist route still followed today.
St. George by Heinz Beck, La Capinera, Vineria Modì and 11 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Taormina
- Teatro Antico. The stone rows face south, so the audience looks past the stage wall to Etna rather than toward it. 109 meters in diameter, the remodelling under Roman rule widened the space for spectacle beyond Greek drama.
- Palazzo Corvaja. Fourteenth-century Sicilian-Gothic palace at the entrance to Corso Umberto, on the site of the Roman forum and the Arab cube of the citadel.
- Castello di Monte Tauro. Arab-Norman fortress at 397 meters on the rock above the centro, reached on foot from Via Circonvallazione.
How to get to Taormina
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Catania is roughly 45 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May, June, September and October are the working months in Taormina. Late spring keeps the air clear over Etna and the cruise season has not yet peaked. Taormina Arte runs concerts and opera at the Teatro Antico from June through August; the same weeks bring the highest crowds on Corso Umberto.
Nicosia
Why visit Nicosia
Nicosia sits at 720 meters in the Erei mountains of inland Sicily, on four rocky hills crowned by a Norman castle. The modern town was founded by Byzantine colonists in the sixth century and expanded under Arab and then Norman rule.
When the Normans took the city in 1064, Roger I repopulated it with settlers from Piedmont and Liguria, the Lombardi, whose Gallo-Italic dialect still lives in town as nkoukkà. King William II made Nicosia a royal city.
The Cattedrale di San Nicolò, dedicated to Nicholas of Bari, was begun in the early 1300s under Frederick II of Aragon and completed by 1340, in Gothic style with a fourteenth-century wooden ceiling and a bell tower listed as a national monument since 1940. Pope Leo X raised the church to collegiate status in 1521.
The Castello Normanno still stands in ruins above the town, anchoring the highest of the four hills.
Al Pilèr have been named by a guide.
What to see in Nicosia
- Cattedrale di San Nicolò. Gothic cathedral begun under Frederick II of Aragon and completed by 1340, with a fourteenth-century wooden ceiling and a national-monument bell tower.
- Chiesa di Santa Maria Maggiore. Second great church of the town, on one of the four hills, with a marble polyptych by Antonello Gagini.
- Castello Normanno. Ruined Norman fortress on the highest of the four hills, built during the eleventh-century conquest of the city.
How to get to Nicosia
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Catania is roughly 108 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May through October is the open season. At 720 meters Nicosia stays cooler than the lowlands, and July and August are bearable even when the Catanese plain crosses thirty-five degrees. September and October are the dry, gold months, the Erei hills turning.
Cefalù
Why visit Cefalù
Cefalù sits 70 kilometers east of Palermo where the Madonie meet the Tyrrhenian, the old town built on a strip of land between the sea and the headland that gave the place its name. The Greeks called it Kephaloidion in the fourth century BC.
Roger II refounded the town at the foot of the rock in 1131 and began the cathedral the same year; tradition holds he vowed to build it after surviving a storm offshore. Its mosaics were executed by masters he brought from Constantinople.
The old town keeps the cathedral, the museum, and the working port within the same short walk, the stone lanes running straight down from the Duomo's square to the sea and the lavatoio fed by its own spring along the way. The beach runs below on one side, the rock rises behind on the other, and the harbor still works at the foot of it.
A small coastal town, built once by the Greeks and refounded by a Norman king against the same rock, still reads as one place rather than several eras stacked on top of each other.
Locanda del Marinaio, Cortile Pepe, Cala Luna and 1 more have been named by a guide.
What to see in Cefalù
- Duomo di Cefalù. Twin-towered cathedral built by Roger II, its west front facing a narrow square hemmed by the old town. Inside, the mosaic apse is reached down a nave still laid out to Norman proportions, the Arab-Norman UNESCO listing covering both the fabric and the decoration.
- La Rocca. The trail switchbacks up bare limestone above the roofs, past the megalithic sanctuary walls before reaching the castle ruins, where the town, the harbor, and the coastline in both directions open out below.
- Museo Mandralisca. Private nineteenth-century collection in an eighteenth-century palazzo, holding the Portrait of an Unknown Sailor and Greek vases from Lipari.
How to get to Cefalù
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Palermo is roughly 63 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May, June, September and October are the windows for Cefalù. The Tyrrhenian is warm enough to swim from mid-May, the cathedral and the climb up La Rocca are bearable in the morning, and the town isn't yet at full crowd. July and August fill the beach and the lungomare past capacity, with Palermo and northern European holidaymakers; the cathedral keeps its mosaics behind a steady queue. Festa SS. Salvatore a Cefalù falls in August.
Riposto
Why visit Riposto
Riposto sits on the Ionian coast twenty-five kilometres north of Catania, at the eastern foot of Etna and the southern edge of the Giarre-Riposto conurbation. The name is commercial: u ripostu in Sicilian, the cellar, because the wine produced in the surrounding county of Mascali was stored here before being loaded onto ships.
The town was the commercial port of Mascali from the sixteenth century onwards, won full administrative autonomy in the eighteenth, and was merged with neighbouring Giarre under the name Jonia from 1939 until 1945, when the two split again. Today the Porto dell'Etna, also called Marina di Riposto, runs as a combined tourist marina, fishing port and small commercial harbour.
Locals still call the town the port of the volcano. Etna fills the western skyline, the railway runs to Catania along the coast, and the historic centre threads between churches built when the wine trade still paid for them.
Zash, La Cucina di Donna Carmela, Vico Astemio have been named by a guide.
What to see in Riposto
- Porto dell'Etna. The combined tourist marina, fishing and commercial port, the largest pleasure harbour between Catania and Messina.
- Chiesa Madre San Pietro. The mother church on the main square, rebuilt in the eighteenth century when Riposto's wine trade financed new construction.
- Centro storico. Grid of streets parallel to the seafront, with palazzi and warehouses built during the eighteenth and nineteenth century wine boom.
How to get to Riposto
There is a railway station in the town, so you can arrive without a car and never need one while you are here. Catania is roughly 29 minutes away by road.
Our tip
May, June, September and October are the dry, clear months when the Ionian is warm enough to swim and Etna stays visible from the seafront. July and August are hot and crowded: the marina fills with sailing traffic and the lungomare runs at full capacity until late. November through March is quiet.
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