Today we left Modica for Noto, another town destroyed by the 1693 earthquake. After the earthquake, the town was entirely relocated 10km away, which gave the city a chance to completely rebuild in the Baroque style of the day.
And they did a marvellous job. If you had the chance to see only one town in this area, this would be the pick of the bunch. Once again, we hit town with no map, scant directions and no plan, but after driving around for a while, we found a park, then found out where we had parked! Again, not too bad – we’ve parked on the road we want to leave by and only a few blocks and flights of stairs above the centro storico. Noto is photogenic – no need to say more!
The dome on the cathedral collapsed during a thunderstorm in 1996, thankfully at 10:30pm when no one was there!
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| The cathedral | The church of San Domenico |
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| More Baroque balconies … | …on the Palazzo Nicolaci |
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| The Salone delle Feste in the Palazzo Nicolaci… | …and the view from the balcony |
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| The tiny Teatro Comunale is a gem | |
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| View into Noto historic centre through the Porta Reale | Would someone please love this car? |
After the bling of Noto, we changed pace considerably by heading to Noto Antica – the site of Noto prior to the 1693 earthquake. Its about 10 km away as the crow flies, considerably further on the roads we drove! The town used to be high on a plateau, mostly surrounded by cliffs and therefore defensible, which made sense in about 5 BC when it was founded. There’s very little left now, largely because most of the stone was reclaimed for the new Noto. As J remarked – a hot, dusty and pretty boring walk.
A quick drive down to Syracuse, where we found the car rental agency without trouble, handed back the car, and trundled through Ortigia to find our home for the next few nights. (I expect the amount of swearing will now dramatically decrease since we no longer have our little car).
Then a shower and a wander through the old town on the way to dinner, which was quite memorable – shared aubergine layered parmigiana (no meat), and seafood pasta with the works, vongole (pippi), mussels, polpi (octopus) and prawns. Yummm …
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