I recently got back from roughly 10 days in Sicily with the wife. I’ll pick a common-yet-arbitrary number, and give you 10 things I learned on my trip:

1) Sicily is unbelievably beautiful: I suspected this before planning the trip — hence, the decision to plan the trip. And, as you can see above, I was right.

2) When flying into Sicily, fly into Catania, and get a window seat on the left side of the plane: To fly to the island, you’ll most likely fly to Rome and then to one of the island’s major airports. You could fly into Palermo, but no one who’s ever been there says its worth spending too much time there. Fly into Sicily’s smaller airport city, Catania, which is quite lovely, if a bit industrialized. And, get a window seat. On the left side of the plane. The flight path takes you right next to Mt. Etna. If at all possible, take this flight around sunset. Truly amazing view. Just a color palette you won’t believe. I tried to take a cell-phone picture out the window, but the flight attendant freaked out, thinking I was trying to make a phone call (and, hence, crash the plane). My meager Italian was not enough to avoid this misunderstanding. So, you’ll have to take the flight yourself.

3) Get the GPS with your rental car: This probably applies to most trips these days. But Sicily’s road system is particularly tricky, especially inside the many hilltop towns, which are, essentially, mazes designed to trap and kill tourists. Even with our TomTom, we had our problems. Especially, say, getting to hotel parking lots. But we couldn’t have done half the exploring we did without it.

4) Be prepared to drive like a sociopath: Driving in Italy, at least Sicily, essentially requires you to be a bad person. Say there’s a four-way intersection with no traffic light or stop sign of any kind. And say there’s a lot of traffic coming from both directions on the street you’re crossing. What do you do, hot shot? What do you do? It turns out the answer is: barge into traffic with no regard for human life. If you hesitate to do so, you will be honked at. You’re not going to get anything on the road that you don’t just take, so take away.

5) Despite above, Sicilians are not honky drivers: Outside of a few limited city situations, Sicilians will not honk at you. They will simply pass you. Anywhere. Anytime. Anyhow. Passing is like soccer, there. And soccer is like… well, the most boring sport in the world. But, man, do they love it.

6) Drive inland: Most of what you’ll want to see, destination-wise, is on the coasts in Sicily. But the most fun you’ll have (or, at least that we had) was simply pointing the car inland and finding whatever towns are in front of you. Winding hillside roads, sweeping vistas, and amazing hilltop towns where history has simply stopped. That’s why you go to Sicily.

7) If you can, travel to Sicily in November: Or, some other off-season time. Cheap hotels. And temples all to yourself, with no one around for miles. And, yet, perfect 50s-60s-70s weather. Unless you’re a beach bum, it’s perfect.

8) If you’re going to try to experience Mt. Etna in even the most cursory way, bring a parka: We learned this the hard way. High-altitude = cold. Check.

9) Go to the temple at Segesta: It’s near Marsala and Palermo.

10) Don’t choose arbitrary numbers when you only learned 9 things