Why Sicily is such a hit for the bambini

Empty beaches, cultural splendours – oh, and the best gelato in Italy – Harry de Quetteville finds the perfect place for a late-season family getaway

What a summer it was. And now that the school year has cranked up again, it’s almost refreshing to think that temperatures will drop a bit, look forward to that glorious autumn palette and see if the moths have had the grace to leave you anything of your favourite scarf.

But it is much harder to look forward to the darkness and grey skies. If you are like me, you will feel you can bear anything under a canopy of crystalline blue. So while I’m ready to give up the scorching temperatures – almost relish it when it’s brisk – I’m sorry, but I’m not quite ready to give up that glorious sun. Not yet, anyway.

So what to do? Well, if you are young and free the answer is simple: book a cheapo package to a distant destination where the season suits your mood. But if you are looking to defy the weather gods and have a young family, you will almost certainly find yourself asking questions to which there is no perfect answer. A checklist for escape is created. The result is that as fast as you consider destinations you rule them out again. Guaranteed heat would be nice but long-haul flights with the monsters seem a nightmare.

So it strikes me that if you can hold out until October half term and temperatures “only” in the 20s are not a deal-breaker, there’s a good case for trying somewhere with a proper volcano. And with beaches. And with a heap of great stuff to see too, just in case you fancy some culture.

There aren’t many short-haul destinations for us autumn getaway artists, but Sicily ticks the boxes. And it’s sunny too – seven hours a day in October, to the British three.

Just remember to take a credit card. I know. What idiot doesn’t take a credit card on holiday? Well, rather in the same way that I have almost stopped using cash for contactless, I have got used to using a debit card for everything. So when my last credit card expired, I didn’t get another. Then we arrived at Catania airport, and I was feeling smug at how straightforward the journey had been, and the man at the rental car desk asked for my credit card. He wanted to put the deposit on it, in case of damage. Even though I had pre-paid the cost of the hire with the debit card, he wanted a credit card. Without one, he was “obliged” to charge me the cost of the full insurance car hire places demand. Three hundred quid extra. Just for having no credit card. So take one.

The irony was that, mindful of the Sicilian reputation for exuberance, shall we say, behind the wheel, I had already taken out extra comprehensive insurance. So it was the most phenomenally well-insured vehicle that nosed its way out of the rental lot.

Driving in Sicily proved to be enlivening, but not terrifying. We found that those who wanted to overtake around blind corners, while chatting away on their phones, did so. They did not – as elsewhere in Italy – drive up to our rear bumper at 150mph then flash their lights, demanding that we overtake around the blind corner first. In towns and cities, the rules of giving way remain flexible, but an automotive intuition soon builds, and in cities everyone is crawling along anyway.

So an hour after departing Catania, we were safely pulling into an agriturismo in south-eastern Sicily – home to such gems as the hill towns of Modica and Ragusa, the ancient port of Syracuse and plenty of beaches. Having caught a 7am flight in the driving rain, we arrived in time for lunch – and yes, it was blue skies and warm at 75F (24C).

The joy of an agriturismo or hotel is that when you do arrive, tired and stressed, you can collapse and – instead of immediately heading out to the supermarket as you might with a villa – request a plate of pasta and a beer. Agriturismi, or farm stays, are a real alternative in Sicily. With rural depopulation, many smallholders rent places, which like any B&B can be basic or as swish as top hotels. What makes them special is that you will usually have at least some contact with the owners, and find much of what you eat comes from the farm. In our case, everything from the olive oil to the fruit and veg was made on site, under the vast polytunnels that coat much of southern Sicily – while the fish was pulled from sea by local fishermen and the wine was the vintage of the neighbourhood co-op.

“You have been to Sicily before?” asked Roberto Giadone, the genial owner, at the supper table that night. No, we replied. “You expect Il Padrino, I know.” We had not, actually, been expecting to walk on to the set of The Godfather, but there is no doubt that an atmosphere endures in Sicily – a social conservatism, behind which, one suspects, any number of secrets may lie. It was only a few days into our holiday, for example, that my wife clocked just how few other women were out on the streets. Men aplenty, chatting in cafés and on park benches as anywhere south of the Alps. But few women. This is a society where not so long ago, women stayed mostly upstairs, and sheets were tied across balcony railings to protect their modesty from the glances of the men below. If you do go, read the great travel writer Norman Lewis’s In Sicily for more such background.

Of course, the one book that really

FAMILY FAVOURITESVilla Renee, below; classical ruins are often found close to beaches, above