part 3: if it ain't Baroque... (Modica and the Val di Noto.)

After our extraordinarily worthwhile detour to Villa Romana del Casale, we headed south to Modica, one of a cluster of UNESCO-listed Baroque towns in the Val di Noto region. Modica itself is divided (roughly) into an upper/older city (alta) and a lower/newer (bassa) city, seeing as how it's built on both sides of a gorge, and while most of the charm is supposedly located in the upper part, most of the action (shopping, eating, our B&B, everyday life) is in the lower city, which I absolutely adored. It was bustling and chaotic and picturesque and full of tunnels and passages underneath buildings and I'd go back in a heartbeat. Getting there by car, however, was a bit of an adventure; as it turned out, our B&B host didn't speak any English, and so I had to get directions on how to find the place, and where to park, in Italian. (Nerve-wracking, but still, yay!)

And once we found the place, this was the view from our balcony. Sheesh.

Set out to do a little exploring; this is the side of the gorge across from the front steps of San Pietro...

 ...which looks like this. (Except, you know, without the overexposure. Yikes.)

And on the inside, yup, definitely baroque.

Next, we visited the amazing little San Nicolo Inferiore, where, naturalmente, they don't allow photos, but man, I wish they did. Located almost underneath San Pietro, it's a tiny cave church with apse, carved into the rock probably in the 11th or 12th century during a brief Greek occupation of the area, and containing a few rock-cut tombs and some 11th-century Byzantine frescoes that were "updated" by later artists in the 13th through 16th centuries. It's not a big site, and not the flashiest, but it's incredible to think that A) this still exists; and B) it somehow made it undiscovered until 1987, when bits of plaster began flaking from the walls of someone's private stockroom or garage ('cause that's how they do garages here--caves!), and lo and behold, Byzantine fresco. Unreal.

Dinner that night was at the absolutely fantastic Accursio, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in Modica bassa, about a five-minute walk from our hotel. I guess April is the off-season, because at dinnertime, we had the entire place to ourselves, and so the service was genuinely personal and tremendously good. And the food: so, so excellent. Every single dish was beautiful and creative and outrageously tasty. (And we took some satisfaction in knowing that the place had been packed at lunchtime; it'd be a terrible shame for such an awesome place to go under. If I lived there, I'd be a regular.)

Here, the shockingly huge amuse bouche selection, which I hadn't really anticipated when I agreed to the 9-course tasting menu. (What can you do, though? It's a gift from the kitchen, as they say in some places). UGH, and somehow I forgot to write all of this down, so as best I can remember, that's a little ball of bread stuffed with rabbit ragu next to a pat of olive oil/sea salt butter; some bread chips; a little arancino; a carrot raviolo; and tiny house-made grissini. 

This plate was just too pretty: rabbit ravioli with ragusano cheese, Parmiggiano crisps (I think...), broad beans, carrots, and peas. So tasty.

And, after dessert, and also not listed on the menu, the piccola pasticceria. (Yesssssss. And if I remember correctly, that's miniature 'mpanatigghi; marzipan candies; ricotta and pistachio cannoli; and two types of chocolates that I somehow failed to write down. As with the starters. I think I was just enjoying myself too much to be bothered.) 

After dinner, the walk back looked like this.

And this. The entire lower city is just honeycombed with these types of passages and I can't even tell you how much I loved this city. Want to go through every tunnel.

And, because Easter was approaching, there were lights strung up everywhere. Pretty.

The next day, after an extraordinary breakfast in our host's extraordinary breakfast room (white grand piano! not one but two large pieces of Art Nouveau [in Italy, it's "Liberty style"] furniture! a massive chandelier! a wall muraled to look like a Roman ruin!) provided by our very friendly host, we headed uphill to Modica alta. (Oh, the cannoli! fresh fruit! coffee! sweet pistachio pastries and savory tomato and meat ones! biancomangiare! We couldn't nearly eat it all, so he pared it down significantly the next day, heh...)

At the top of a bit of a climb (ugh, so many stairs!) through one of the more atmospheric and charming places I've been in my life...

...we reached Modica's impressive duomo, which was more-or-less completed in 1738. And is UNESCO-listed, don't you know. 

Two things really stood out for me in Modica's style of baroque: one, there were faces everywhere...

...and two, the architectural embellishments in this city, in whatever state of repair they might appear, are impossibly numerous and just beautiful.

For example, every arched doorway had an ornate metal grille over the top of it, and they were all unique, as far as I could tell.

Waaaay up on the third story of this building, a rather noisy guardian was closely following our progress around his building. (Hee.)

Faces everywhere, but especially in the corbels underneath balconies.

The ones along Corso Umberto I--one of the city's main thoroughfares--were especially amazing.

 So much detail!

And they're all so individual!

There are even some along this crazy-narrow, hazard-lined street down which my husband had to back our car when we turned the wrong way out of the B&B garage, oops. (I have come to believe that "insane parking and driving-in-reverse skills" are among his superpowers.)

Such a pretty and intriguing city.

One of the most charming things about the cities we visited in Sicily were the fruit-and-veg trucks. These guys would drive around the city and either shout about their wares through loudspeakers as they drove, and then watch to see if anyone flagged them down for a purchase, or set up in a parking lot or on the side of the road to sell whatever produce was fresh that day. It was so amazing and I want it so badly to be a thing in Zürich. So fresh! So local! So communal! So dear and so quaint! (Want, want, want.)

Once we'd found our way back into Modica bassa, we headed towards our next destination, at least for the afternoon: Ragusa.

Where we found the Portale di San Giorgio, the only remaining piece of a 14th-century Gothic church that was destroyed during the 1693 earthquake.

We passed through the stunning Piazza Pola, with the church of San Giuseppe and Benedictine museum...

...on our way to see Ragusa's duomo, high atop its hill. Sadly, we arrived just in time for it to close during the hours we were there (thanks, Italian siesta-time!)*, but it was ok, because I've begun to suspect that one can only see so many baroque churches before they all start running together. (Just don't tell anyone I said that. It was magnificent from the outside, though!)

Wandered past a few more spectacular corbels on the 18th-century Palazzo la Rocca. (I'm fairly certain that bottom face on the left has both a pince-nez and vampire teeth.)

Yes, Ragusa is yet another disgustingly beautiful hilltop town in Sicily. (Those seem to be infinite there.)

Another floral grille in Ragusa.

Bit of a wonky lion atop the Circolo di Conversazione (Conversation Circle) palace, which was built in 1850 to provide the local nobles with a place to meet and mingle away from the common folk. (That's an actual true fact.)

Took a stroll through the lovely Giardino Ibleo, at which point in time, Ragusa broke my camera. (Well, that's not entirely accurate; the stabilization enhancer thingy on my camera broke while we were in Ragusa. Mike was able to turn the broken bit off, but if only a few photos from here on are a little fuzzy, I'll be very happy.)**

Ragusa is another city that's divided between gorge and hilltops; this is the view of Ragusa Ibla, the older/lower town, from Ragusa Superiore, the upper/newer. Immediately after I took this photo, it began to pour down rain, so I didn't get to check out the next place up close...

...the stunning Chiesa di Santa Maria dell'Itria, with its famous blue bell tower. Sigh. This was the thing I wanted to see there, and stupid rain and stupid closing hours got in my way.

I would gladly, definitely return to Ragusa, since we spent only a few hours there, during which time everything was closed, and it ended up raining like mad. There's a ton more there to see, and additional tunnels and mysterious alleyways to explore, and, most likely, some really good food as well. But, as we're neither sitters-still nor waiters-out of rain storms, we headed off to see if perhaps the weather was better in Noto. Turns out, it was. 

I tell you, the combination of those limestone buildings and that blue, blue sky was breathtaking. (Here, their duomo, originally completed in 1776, and good grief, I just discovered that the better part of this thing collapsed in 1996. It wasn't reopened until 2007, and restoration completely finished in 2011. Photos of the collapse and amazing reconstruction here.)

Massive frescoes on the impressive dome. (Interestingly, these were completed in 2011 by a Russian artist who has revived the nearly-dead technique of actual Michelangelo/Rafael-style, painting-on-wet-plaster fresco.)

The well-colonnaded Palazzo Ducezio, across the street from the foot of the duomo's steps.

Along that same street, the monastery of San Salvatore, right next to the church of San Francesco d'Assissi. (This was really all we did in Noto: stroll down Corso Vittorio Emanuele, mouths slightly agape at the grandeur around us.)***

After our lightning-quick, exteriors-only tour of Noto (not enough!!), we headed back to Modica for dinner, which I promptly ruined by getting a migraine just after we sat down to eat. My hero of a husband quite literally sprinted out to find me some energy drinks (a rapid and heavy infusion of caffeine does the trick, if I catch the migraine early enough), and afterwards, neither of us were terribly into finishing dinner, so that was the end of that evening. (Well, you can't win 'em all, or something like that.)

The next morning, after our somewhat pared-down, but still delightful, breakfast, we struck off towards Siracusa by way of small, quiet Scicli, another of the UNESCO baroque cities in the Val di Noto. It was quite hot and bright there, but we (ok, I) enjoyed traipsing its streets for an hour or two. It's gorgeous.

Church of St. Michael the Archangel.

Church of St. Bartholomew, with the convent of St. Mary up on the hill.

Scicli is somewhat known for its old cave-houses carved into the rocks of the gorge, but sadly, Chiafura, the main settlement of abandoned cave dwellings, was closed off. Which, of course, makes it that much more intriguing.

And speaking of caves: we passed a doorway labeled with a hand-painted sign advertising the "Presepe artistico di Carmelo Pisano," and standing outside was a tidy little elderly gent wearing a name tag. Since we'd already passed him twice, we felt a bit guilty and decided to go in. Signore Pisano ushered us down some tight, narrow stairs into a tiny grotto, where we found his hand-made ceramic presepe of Scicli. It took him years to make this, and it was still a work in progress. He was quite proud, and very friendly and welcoming. (There are several other similar presepi in Scicli, according to Google maps. Interesting.)

From Scicli, we stopped for lunch at an excellent little pizzeria (where they apparently teach pizza-making classes!) in Avola, and headed into Siracusa. Which is where we begin our next, longest, and final Sicilian chapter.

*Just FYI, there's a good 3- to 4-hour window in Italy in the middle of the day during which basically everything shuts down. On the one hand, it's somewhat charming, as it's a reminder that Italians savor life and relaxation probably much more than a lot of the rest of us...it's just tricky to plan around when you're our kind of tourist. (The kind that really doesn't stop moving, if at all possible, until dinnertime.)

**Also in this garden is the tiny church of Saint Agatha, whose wood-filled interior--and especially rare, pre-earthquake ceiling--was so beautifully restored in 2016 that it just gleams, and the whole place smells like linseed oil. It's neat.

***As with Modica and Ragusa, I'd return to Noto in a heartbeat. So many palazzos to visit, and alleyways leading to excellent views and interesting places. And I just stumbled across the existence of the ruins at Noto Antica, the city's old center, which was abandoned after the 1693 earthquake. HOW DID I MISS THAT?? Terrible, terrible planning. Sheesh.