Ragusa Ibla, Scicli, Modica, Noto (Sicily). Travel notes.

Country: Italy

Region: Sicily

Time of visit: June 2021

Suggested duration: from one to two days

My rating: 7/10

An Account of a One-Day Travel Itinerary through Ragusa Ibla, Modica, and Scicli

After a day spent dedicating more time than necessary to the "three Aci" my inner voice began throwing reproaches to me: "Ragusa Ibla, Modica, Scicli, Ispica, Caltagirone, Donnafugata, Piazza Armerina ... do you have any idea how many places are there to see ?? And you spend a whole day to see 3 (or rather 2) villages and even take the luxury of spending the afternoon beached like a whale ??".

I began to feel uncomfortable and to think that I was wasting this opportunity to visit Sicily to indulge in idleness. The next day was then devoted to a mad rush to mark the stages in my traveler's notebook and make up for lost time.

9 AM - Ragusa Ibla

Ragusa Ibla. Baroque. Everyone says it'is beautiful. This is the set for many scenes of Commissario Montalbano (it's been 10 years since I last watched tv, but that's okay). All very clean and tidy for tourists. Maybe even too clean, after Catania it almost seems to be in a film set rather than a city. When you walk the streets of Florence you are overwhelmed by creativity and art but you are in a lively environment; the feeling is to experience the Renaissance palaces as an inhabitant of Florence in 1500 lived them; here everything is authentic, but there is a latent feeling of living in an open-air museum, there is a disconnect between history and current events. I don't know, something seems fake, perhaps because everything is too well cared for. Stop overthinking! The clock is ticking! It's late! Walk in the historic center. Baroque. So much Baroque. Bad lunch in a tourist trap. Anyway, Ragusa Ibla: two thumbs up! Ok, done, next on.

2.30 PM Modica

It's late. It's late. Hurry up. So many places to see, so little time. Damn, I didn't have to waste so much time in the three ACIs. Cathedral of San Giorgio. Baroque. So much Baroque. Walk in the historic center. Some nice views from above. Sometimes it seems that sicilians just can't help it: you have a nice historical village? You need to spoil it with some concrete buildings here and there. Chocolate museum (in Modica there is an ancient tradition of production of a particular type of chocolate; the production method ensures that the sugar crystals do not dissolve in the chocolate, giving it a crunchy texture different from the common chocolate bars produced anywhere else) chocolate statues, chocolate-based portraits of Pink Floyd (really?!). Purchase a few pounds of chocolate. Kids, you cannot touch the statues, let alone eat them!! Memo to myself: next time, skip the chocolate museum and spend more time wandering the streets of the town. I'm starting to get a sense of deja vu; hadn't I already seen this Baroque cathedral this morning? Ok, done, next on.

6 PM Scicli

Yet another scenic stone village. The van of a sandwich maker ("u 'paninazzu", the badass sandwich) at the entrance of the town states the Sicilian way of life philosophy: "Mangia, bevi e futtatinni": eat, live and give no fuck). Walk through the streets. Some nice views from the top. Usual care for the historical heritage: the garbage bags next to the dilapidated church look like an installation from the Venice Biennale. Haven't I seen this baroque cathedral before? A local elder entertains us in a chat in strict Sicilian dialect; I sense that real estate prices have skyrocketed since they made a film (perhaps it refers to Montalbano) and that he disapproves it. Top-notch granita (Nivera, Via Penna 14). Come on, come on, it's late! Anyway, Scicli, so nice!

Allow me a little glottological digression: I would like to be able to pass on the peculiarities of the Sicilian language to non-native Italians. In particular, toponymy has a particular charm and sound. Let's take the name Scicli: any Italian, hearing the sound of the word, even not knowing its location, will immediately think that it is a Sicilian town. First, how do you pronounce it? In Sicily life is slow, and this is also expressed in the pronunciations; all the vowels are doubled, as if to transmit the echo of a sound lingering on in time. If you want to pronounce "Scicli" like a Sicilian, you have to say "Sciicli". The initial "sh" sound reminds me of the word "scirocco", the warm wind from the south that channels itself into the gorges of the Val di Noto and evokes the heat of the scorching Sicilian summer days. The tongue caresses the palate to pronounce it, as if tasting the creaminess of a granita. But the sweet sound "sh" is immediately followed by the scratchy "cli", which abruptly truncates the word in a dissonant way with a palatal-dental diphthong unusual for the Italian language. Many city names in Sicily have exotic sounds that reflect the legacy left by centuries of Greek, Arab, Norman occupation and contribute to the charm of Sicily.

The sun begins to set and the goal of recovering time in a tour de force of the Val di Noto manifests itself in all its stupidity. It will be necessary to return more calmly, resuming the journey from where I left it. There's still too many places to see and so many clones of Baroque cathedrals (Militello, Caltagirone, Palazzolo Acreide, Donnafugata, Piazza Armerina, Ispica...).

A small final consideration: I have not studied in depth the Baroque movement; it may be that I do not have the adequate analysis tools and that my evaluation is superficial; in any case I find Sicilian Baroque architecture very redundant and repetitive; unlike the Roman Baroque, which has been able to combine the abundance of forms with a variety of expressive means, the Sicilian Baroque seems to me to infinitely replicate (like the echo of trailing vowels) the same architectural modules made of curved facades broken by couples or triples of columns. The visit to the Val di Noto left me with mixed feelings, between the amazement for the scenographic extravagance and the bulimic satiety due to excess and repetitiveness.

Bonus track: pictures from a previous trip to Noto. Baroque! So much Baroque!

Some Information — Like in a Proper Travel Blog

The 1693 Earthquake and the Birth of the Val di Noto Baroque

What many visitors don’t realise is that the extraordinary concentration of baroque towns in south-eastern Sicily is the direct consequence of a catastrophe.

In January 1693, one of the most violent earthquakes in European history devastated large parts of eastern Sicily. Entire cities were destroyed and tens of thousands of people died. The reconstruction that followed was not simply a process of rebuilding houses: it became a vast architectural experiment.

Cities such as Noto, Ragusa, Modica and Scicli were either rebuilt entirely or radically redesigned. Architects and local elites took the opportunity to rethink the urban landscape, introducing wide streets, theatrical squares and churches designed to dominate the skyline.

The result is what today we call Sicilian Baroque: a style exuberant, scenographic and often deliberately excessive, perfectly suited to a society eager to demonstrate resilience and power after a disaster. In 2002 this unique urban ensemble was recognised by UNESCO as the Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto.

Ragusa Ibla: A Vertical City

Among the towns of the Val di Noto, Ragusa Ibla is probably the most dramatic from an urbanistic point of view.

The old town clings to the slopes of a limestone hill and develops vertically along a labyrinth of staircases, narrow alleys and terraces. Unlike Noto, which was largely planned according to rational principles after the earthquake, Ragusa evolved in a more organic way, preserving the irregular structure of a medieval town.

Its architectural climax is the Cathedral of San Giorgio, designed by the architect Rosario Gagliardi, one of the key figures of Sicilian Baroque. The church dominates the city with a monumental façade and a spectacular staircase that transforms the square into a kind of urban stage set.

Standing there, it becomes clear that Sicilian Baroque is not only about decoration: it is also about urban theatre.

Modica and Scicli: Two Variations on the Same Theme

At first glance Modica and Scicli might appear similar, but their urban character is quite different.

Modica is built along a narrow valley that forces the town to develop in layers. The result is a striking visual composition: houses, palaces and churches seem stacked one above the other, following the contours of the hills. The monumental Church of San Giorgio rises above the city like a baroque crown, accessible through a long staircase that reinforces its scenographic impact.

Scicli, on the other hand, feels more open and harmonious. The elegant Via Francesco Mormino Penna, lined with baroque palaces and churches, forms one of the most refined urban sequences in Sicily. At the end of the street stands Palazzo Beneventano, famous for its grotesque masks and elaborate stone carvings, a masterpiece of Sicilian baroque imagination.

Both towns illustrate how a relatively limited architectural vocabulary could still generate remarkably different urban experiences.

Noto: The “Perfect” Baroque City

If Ragusa feels organic and Modica dramatic, Noto is something else entirely: a baroque city designed almost like an architectural manifesto.

After the earthquake the original medieval settlement was abandoned and a completely new town was built a few kilometres away. The new Noto followed rational urban principles: straight streets, axial perspectives and carefully planned visual alignments.

Walking along Corso Vittorio Emanuele, the main axis of the city, one encounters a sequence of churches, palaces and terraces carved in warm honey-coloured limestone. In the late afternoon light the stone turns almost golden, creating the illusion of a city sculpted out of sunlight.

It is perhaps the most coherent expression of Sicilian Baroque, and also the one that most easily gives the impression of being a perfectly preserved stage set.