Just booked our 2 week summer holiday. Staying in Montalbano's village, Punta Secca, near Ragusa.
Any tips for the SE part of the island? I doubt we'll be venturing to the western side.
Sicily
- KeithPratt
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- echolalia
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Re: Sicily
With your love of ancient stuff you will love Sicily, I’m sure.
Good places to visit strictly in SE Sicily:
Piazza Armerina (for the Roman villa)
Modica (famous for chocolate)
Noto – a really beautiful place full of beautiful buildings. Best appreciated at sundown.
Siracusa – particularly but not only Ortygia, the island bit. The cathedral is amazing – a pre-classical Greek temple with Norman and 18th-century accretions. Quite mental! Which kind of encapsulates the appeal of Sicily as a whole – the span of history that the place has. The mainland part has the “regional museum of antiquities”. It has the Venus Landolina – with bits missing but still incredible. Really mInd-blowingly good in fact.
North of Siracusa is industrial and not very interesting on the whole. Catania isn’t always pretty.
If there’s a place I’d recommend you avoid, it would be Gela (where Aeschylus died)... there’s something the matter with that town.
The best Greek temples are further west – Agrigento isn’t too far way at all. In fact the whole island is small enough that everything’s within striking distance, with a car.
The food is great. I really like the couscous. I think traditionally it belongs to the west of the island, but the last time I was there I noticed it was beginning to creep east. Also the fennel-flavoured sausage… and arancini.
Good places to visit strictly in SE Sicily:
Piazza Armerina (for the Roman villa)
Modica (famous for chocolate)
Noto – a really beautiful place full of beautiful buildings. Best appreciated at sundown.
Siracusa – particularly but not only Ortygia, the island bit. The cathedral is amazing – a pre-classical Greek temple with Norman and 18th-century accretions. Quite mental! Which kind of encapsulates the appeal of Sicily as a whole – the span of history that the place has. The mainland part has the “regional museum of antiquities”. It has the Venus Landolina – with bits missing but still incredible. Really mInd-blowingly good in fact.
North of Siracusa is industrial and not very interesting on the whole. Catania isn’t always pretty.
If there’s a place I’d recommend you avoid, it would be Gela (where Aeschylus died)... there’s something the matter with that town.
The best Greek temples are further west – Agrigento isn’t too far way at all. In fact the whole island is small enough that everything’s within striking distance, with a car.
The food is great. I really like the couscous. I think traditionally it belongs to the west of the island, but the last time I was there I noticed it was beginning to creep east. Also the fennel-flavoured sausage… and arancini.
- KeithPratt
- Arsehole all Erect
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Re: Sicily
Thanks!
Yeah the food is going to be amazing. I suspect it's going to be extremely hot as well.
Yeah the food is going to be amazing. I suspect it's going to be extremely hot as well.