We're traveling to Sicily in October with another couple. Our villa (VRBO) is in the small village of Trecastagni. It's nestled in the hills about 1/2 hour from Catania, not on the beach. Has anyone traveled to Sicily and hired drivers instead of renting a car? We'll be there for 17 days and will likely take small trips to see historical sites, and spend time on the beach.
I ask this for several reasons. Third-party car insurance does not sit well with me. Driving in Italy, especially in the busier cities and high-traffic tourist areas is a nightmare. I simply know this from visiting the country 7-8 times in the last 30 years. We have family who live there, who are experienced drivers who scared the crap out of me. And going to restaurants on our ventures, drinking wine, and eating a lot makes one very sleepy. We could just spend the night at the location and only drive during the day, still. The family members will not be with us. We'll be on our own this time. Any suggestions?
I've rented many times in Europe, including Sicily and Italy.
I've never purchased excess insurance through the rental agency, always relied on my Chase Sapphire Preferred Visa card, decline CWD and any excess insurance.
Only once had a problem and it was in France where a couple of weeks after I returned a car very early in the morning before the office was open, the agency claimed there was a scratch on one wheel. They wanted around $600 with various administrative fees.
I made the claim to the Visa Benefits Manager and they paid out the claim.
One claim out of decades of renting cars in Europe.
That said, I would make some suggestions in renting cars:
1. Don't rent from Italian agencies like Maggiore or LocAuto or others as they tend to have the most complaints on Tripadvisor and other travel forums.
That doesn't mean renting from a Hertz or Avis or some other international brand will mean there wouldn't be any shenanigans. These brands franchise to local owners in Europe and some of them have really bad reps. You can see Google reviews for some of these offices and it turns out the same local company owns Alamo and Enterprise franchises on an island like Sicily or Corsica.
But in general renting directly from an international brand like Sixt and through AutoEurope in theory will give you some protection.
2. Take photos or make a video before departing from the rental office of any blemishes or dents or scratches with your phone. They will disclose some scratches on the rental agreement but if you look closely enough you may find more. If I'm in doubt whether a blemish is a scratch or maybe some stain fro a bug, I take pictures or record video of it.
3. On Sicily, the bigger challenge will not be driving, especially between towns, but in parking. So in a place like Taormina or Ortigia, you will likely have to park far from your hotel. May have to take a bus or even a taxi to take yourself and your luggage from parking to the hotel. I'd search for hotels which have some kind of parking solution, either private parking, free or paid, or can tell you the public garages near the hotel. They often will have deals for parking rates which are better than you going in and getting a timed ticket from the gate.
This is true of all Europe, not just Sicily.
4. In Italy in particular, you have to be observant of Zona Traffica Limitada or ZTL. Towns designate centers as ZTLs so if you drive in, you may be subject to hefty fines. Some of the bigger cities like Florence have cameras which take pictures of every car and its license plate if you cross into some ZTL border.
Then they send the bill to the rental car office, which forwards it to you along with their own administrative fees. They have international collection agencies.
Some hotels have arrangements so that you can enter the ZTL to reach the hotel, either to park or to at least drop off your luggage. In those cases, you tell them your license plate and they contact the police with temporary exemptions for your car.
So Ortigia has it and I would imagine Catania and Palermo have it. Some smaller towns may not have them. Best to ask your hotel.
5. Agree, avoid Palermo and Catania and the ring commuter roads around them. Well I never tried but I've seen warnings about them. But I've rented cars out of both PMO and CTA airports and drove towards other towns. I would not bother to have a car if staying in either city because the parking costs and ZTL hassles are probably huge.
As far as hiring drivers, I've seen discussions on other forums. It sounds prohibitively expensive, an outing would cost at least a couple hundred Euros. If you hired a driver to take you to and from the airport for say a distance of 20 miles, you're probably paying well over 100 Euros. They would have to come out to the airport and after transporting your, have to drive back home.
So each time you hire someone to come out to that little village, drive you around and go home, I would guess at least 200 Euros and much more depending on how many hours it takes for the driver to take you around to various places and take you back.