The baroque of the Val di Noto
Eight towns levelled in 1693 and rebuilt all at once.
On the eleventh of January 1693 an earthquake of an estimated magnitude around seven destroyed the south-east of Sicily and killed tens of thousands of people. The rebuilding that followed was quick, coordinated and stylistically coherent: within two generations a group of baroque towns was born, built almost from scratch, with the same taste and often the same architects.
The eight towns recognised by Unesco in 2002 are Caltagirone, Militello, Catania, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo Acreide, Ragusa and Scicli. Some were rebuilt where they stood, others moved by kilometres: Noto was rebuilt in a new position and has a regular plan, with three parallel axes and the churches placed where the sun lights them best.
What there is to see
At Noto the local stone is golden and the facades change colour with the light; Palazzo Nicolaci has balconies held up by brackets carved into figures. At Modica, San Giorgio stands at the top of a stair of two hundred and fifty steps. Ragusa is split in two, the eighteenth-century upper town and Ibla rebuilt on its old site, linked by flights of steps.
They are all a short distance apart: from Ragusa to Noto is forty minutes. The Ragusa area also has some of the island's few campsites, on the coast between Marina di Ragusa and Sampieri.