Sicily’s Golfo di Castellammare glowed in the moonlight as we gazed out of the taxi window.

We felt the presence of mountains and imagined places we would soon see: spectacular rockscapes, romantic resorts and beaches with Mount Etna smoking in the distance.

First, we would have a few days unwinding in our Eurocamp mobile home at El Bahira, a large campsite on an isolated peninsula at the north end of the island’s short western coast, about an hour’s drive from Palermo.

This area of great natural beauty is potentially a good place for tranquil rest, but campsites in this area get busy in August. Ours was pretty crowded when we arrived, and got busier approaching the public holiday of Ferragosto.

More and more tents appeared wherever there was shade, whether across a path or beneath the plastic netting hung over tarmac tennis courts.

The August sun can be scorching, making it difficult to explore the countryside, or indeed to relax fully in a mobile home with no shaded deck or air conditioning.

So we spent afternoons sitting in the shadow of our mobile home and cooling off in the busy pool, which was well-maintained and well-positioned, overlooking the sea.

On calm days we had more options, sometimes following a path through otherwise impassable rocks to a jetty for a swim in the sea. The water was clear and the views amazing, all within two minutes of our temporary home.

If you are staying on the site you can eat in one of the two cafes, one specialising in pizzas.

Unfortunately, making your own meal is difficult because of the limited range in the site shop. You can buy fresh bread and deli items but not fresh vegetables, fresh meat or fish. A fishmonger’s van visits the site most mornings but the only time we managed to find it we were not tempted to buy anything.

While we happily passed the time of day with our neighbours, we found little community spirit among fellow Eurocampers, who mainly had cars and were out all day.

We would have liked a ‘welcome party’ to introduce Lizzie, our lone 13-year-old (our older kids didn’t want to come) to others in the same position. This was Eurocamp’s first season here, though, so perhaps this will come later.

As we didn’t hire a car at the start, the site provided a regular minibus service to the local resort, about three miles away. St Vito lo Capo has a long, white sandy beach, excellent bars, restaurants and small supermarkets.

Finding a place on the beach is easy if you pay 15 euros (about £13) a day for a parasol and two loungers. The sea is great for swimmers and non-swimmers, with a lifeguard, and good views of the town, its mountain and the lighthouse on the tip of the cape.

Moorish culture is strongly evident, reflected in the architecture of the church and the couscous on the menus. You’re as likely to find lamb tagine as pasta, and can almost taste the cumin and coriander in the hot air as you walk down the main street. A typical lunch – mussels or seafood risotto followed by swordfish steak for two, plus spag bol for our daughter and drinks – cost about £60.

When we hired a car in St Vito, the peak-season price for our air-conditioned Opel Corsa was about £54 a day. It was worth it to be able to explore and eat out in the local villages, such as Macari on the lower slopes of the mountains. Try Azzuro, where you can watch the sun go down over the sea.

We took another day trip to the charming mountain-top village of Erice, about an hour away.

It was a fine day so we parked in Trapani and took the cable car so we could survey the north-western coast and the Egadi islands. On another day we visited the Greek amphitheatre and temple at Segesta.

Sicily is a big place, and to see the famous sites we had to stay on the other side of the island. We drove to the ancient town of Taormina through terrain more mountainous and remote than we had expected.

We were taken by surprise when negotiating twists and turns, not to mention stray sheep, to suddenly find ourselves in a town bursting with grand medieval and Baroque buildings, their fading glamour accentuated by palm trees.

Here we realised why British campers are only just discovering Sicily: for small groups, small hotels don’t cost much more than a mobile home, so campers save only if they are in groups of six or more.

We stayed three nights in a delightful beachside hotel in Taormina, which has been an international attraction since the days of the Grand Tour. Although most visitors to Taormina arrive by budget airline, others are cruise passengers on fleeting visits.

The sight to see is the theatre built by the Greeks in the 3rd century BC and again by the Romans in the 2nd century AD. It still stages concerts, with Mount Etna smoking in the background.

Taormina is a fine place to eat, with well-established restaurants and pretty squares, one of the best being Piazza IX Aprile. Have a drink at Caffe Wunderbar to follow in the footsteps of Tennessee Williams, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and, more recently, Tom Cruise.

The beaches, reached by cable car or road, are sandy and the sea is good for swimming.

For our final days on the island we returned to Palermo, driving around Mount Etna to reach the north west.

Now we could explore sites left by the Normans – Cappella Palatina, the cathedral, and the Teatro Massimo, where classic scenes of The Godfather were filmed.

The opera scene at the close of the trilogy was filmed here, and the city’s town hall featured in The Godfather: Part III, although when Michael’s (Al Pacino) son Anthony (Franc D’Ambrosio) becomes an opera singer, the toast to his debut is filmed in the city’s Villa Malfitano.

Palermo has broad smart streets, with stylish shops close to bustling narrow alleys packed with market stalls and rough areas; some are a bit scary. There is lots of traffic, particularly Vespas flying by at speed.

The place is crammed with history and incredibly beautiful buildings, but looks rather in need of reinvestment. Some buildings, we learned on an open-top bus tour, have not been repaired since they were damaged in the Second World War.

Our first visit to Sicily left us keen to take another look at its amazing history. But next time we’ll go in spring.

Fact File

* Eurocamp offers seven-night breaks in late August, at El Bahira Parc, close to San Vito lo Capo, from £521 per family, accommodation only. Ferry crossings, fly-drive packages or rail travel can be arranged through Eurocamp, for a supplement.

* Eurocamp reservations: 0844 4060552/eurocamp.co.uk.