RAGUSA AND VAL DI NOTO
Amongst the regions of Sicily, the province of Ragusa is one that has managed to keep and develop its environmental and cultural heritage.
It is also interesting from an anthropological and historical point of view.
Even if for the greater part it has been thousands of years of foreign conquerors and civilizations that have shaped what we see, like the rest of Sicily, the identity of Ibla has been marked by the catastrophic earthquake of 1693, which affected all of eastern Sicily with the shocking and terrible destruction of land and even entire cities: Catania, Lentini, Noto, Scicli, Ragusa, Chiaramonte and many others were completely destroyed.
In the area known as Val di Noto, other settlements such as Modica, Spaccaforno, Niscemi, Vittoria etc. also suffered enormous damage.
RAGUSA
From the urban point of view, Ragusa has a double identity as a result of being split in two by the earthquake. On one side there is the old town of Ibla, the result of many centuries of slow and continual development; on the other, the new centre of Ragusa, built from scratch after 1693 with a quadratic urban structure, already tried and tested by the Spanish in the new towns of South America.
Lower Ragusa (or Ibla) is today the eastern part of the city, siting between two steep valleys; it is a baroque face on top of a pre-existing plan, that is there thanks to the old feudal nobility that rebuilt the town on top of the ruins from the earthquake. To the west there is Upper Ragusa, a city from the 1700s with a geometric layout which was the desire of the new aristocracy.
SYRACUSA
The incredible mix of styles piled on top of each other might make Syracuse seem a bit disjointed but also intriguing.
The modern city, created after the bombings of the Second World War, hides the ancient one. Remnants and renovation are its characteristics.
Pieces from a distant and mythical past mix with Swabian architecture, the Gothic-Catalan style of some of the buildings, and luxurious baroque.
Ortigia, a small island connected with the land by a bridge, contains all this in an area 1km long and 500m wide.
On this island the ancient city was built and it has been an enchanting location throughout its age, there is also a legend of the city's foundation: They say that the nymph Aretusa re-emerged from the sea here, after swimming from the coast of Peloponnesus having escaped from the river god Alpheus, and once here she was transformed into a fresh-water spring by the goddess Diana, to whom she called for help.
SCICLI
“It rises up at the meeting of three valleys, with houses packed everywhere until the cliffs, a grand square at rest on its bed cut by torrents, and ancient ecclesiastical buildings that rise up in different points, each as a baroque acropolis, to form its crown”. This is how the Sicilian writer Elio Vittorini described Scicli in his unfinished novel The Cities of The World (Le città del mondo). His characters seem nearly disturbed by the magnificence of this city, and they think “maybe it is the most beautiful of all the cities of the world. And people are happy in cities which are beautiful…”. In fact the fusion of architecture and nature that forms Scicli, makes it a fascinating theatre of stone where to wander and discover its jewels of the late manneristic and baroque styles.
After the earthquake, the historical city was shaped by an army of stucco workers, cabinet makers, master builders and painters between the 18th and 19th centuries. Although still conserving the medieval layout of the most ancient districts of Vauso, Chiafura and San Vito, Scicli is characterized for its late baroque architecture and for the private palaces that give it an image of a neoclassic and eclectic city.
MODICA
Modica is an attractive historic town in south-eastern Sicily, one of the area's UNESCO-listed Baroque towns. Modica is particularly famous for its chocolate, and it is an appealing destination for food-lovers, making a good holiday base or day-trip destination.
Modica is situated in the dramatic landscape of the Monti Iblei, a range of high ground divided up by deep valleys and surprisingly populous towns. Important in Medieval times, Modica was rebuilt after the great earthquake of 1693 and now boasts fine late-Baroque architecture as well as a medieval old town.
