Sicilia Outlet Village | Shopping Guide & Haul

Sicily is a popular shopping destination with us Maltese, most especially the Sicilia Outlet Village. A couple of weeks ago, we went with a couple of friends for a weekend in Sicily to shop around for furniture and of course, me and my friend were not going to let the opportunity to visit the Sicilia Outlet Village go amiss. Here I will be sharing my experience with you as well as some tips to consider if you plan on visiting and of course, a haul of what I bought!

Before you go

Sicilia Outlet Village? There's an app for that! Before you head to Sicilia Outlet Village, make sure to download the app from the Google Play Store or Apple Store. The app has everything you need to make your visit a breeze - international size converter, currency converter, village map as well as an offers section among other features.

Plan on wearing a comfortable outfit - you'll want your hands free to be able to scour the sales so a cross-body bag or a backpack is your best bet. Moreover, make sure you wear a pair of comfortable shoes. You don't want to have to stop shopping because your feet are aching, do you?

Find out which shops you want to visit first so you can buy the things you want from them before spending all your allocated savings on other buys. The map will come in handy to see where our favourite brands are located.

Lastly, when do the sales happen? Although there are heavy discounts all year round, the best sales periods are in May and also in August and they last till the 15th of September. 

Opening hours are as follows:

Monday - Friday 10:00am - 8:00pm

Saturday - Sunday 10:00am - 9:00pm

While you're there

So you've made it to the Outlet Village what's next? Shop around for the best deals on clothes. Shops usually have discounts from 30% up to 70% and most of them carry a section of heavily discounted goods too. We got the best deals at Calvin Klein, Furla, Polo Ralph Lauren and Michael Kors which was fantastic as they were the shops I really wanted to get something from in the first place. If you're keen on high end brands, Harmont & Blaine is worth checking out too.

There's the luxury area housing brands the likes of Gucci, Prada and Dolce & Gabbana to name a few. I couldn't take pictures of the shops here so I guess it's up to you to go and experience them :) The items on sale here cost less than what you would normally pay for but do stay realistic - a D&G dress will still cost upwards of €600 here so I just thought I'd give it a mention.

Besides clothing, there are household shops, beauty shops (including KIKO) as well as a Lindt Chocolate World which everyone knows is chocolate heaven. I highly recommend their ice creams too - almost any Lindt flavour is available and they don't disappoint!

It took us around 6 hours to go round the shops at Sicilia Outlet Village so do allocate time for it if you plan to visit especially if it's your first time. Parking doesn't like it's a problem as there are ample spaces all around. We found that the best times to visit are early in their opening hours but it could also be the fact that it was raining that kept people from visiting early.

If you need a break, there's a handful of delightful cafes and stops where you can rest your legs (and arms from shopping bags) and grab a bite to eat before getting back to your shopping :)

All in all, I think this is a wonderful experience for a shopping addict like me and of course I cannot conclude this post without showing you what I bought. I am only going to quote the prices I paid for the items as I don't have the tags showing the original prices any more.

The only buys that cost the same as online and the other stores around Italy are the KIKO products. Here I got some of their new masks from the Mask Parade collection which were on a 3+1 offer, a Magnetic Eyeshadow in the shade 02 Earth Challenge from the Fall 2.0 Collection and an Instant Colour Matte Liquid Lip Colour in the shade 09 Rosy Mauve. I also got a fluffy blending eye brush which is by far my favourite eye brush. They have revamped the look of their brushes and I must admit they look much more sophisticated. This particular brush was previously known as Eyes 200 and it now goes by as 56. I'm curious to see if it's as good as the old one as the new one seems to have less bristles. The KIKO purchase totalled €44.70.

As for clothing, I got this beautiful dress from Michael Kors (€129). I also scored this bright orange cardigan from Polo Ralph Lauren for €44.95. I also got two bags - the red one is from Coccinelle (€145.50) and the Julia bag from Furla (€159) which is Mario's birthday gift to me along with the cardigan :).

I highly recommend visiting this Outlet Village as  you really can get some good bargains even though most of the shops carry past collections. The helpful staff at all the outlets make for an even better experience and it is just a little shopping heaven!