For our last day in Baroque southeastern Sicily, we got up earlyish and hopped in the car towards another place that sounded interesting on the map – Noto Ántica, which we gathered to be the ancient part of town. Somehow, it ended up being a 45 minute drive (no, we didn’t get lost this time, thank you), and we arrived to see basically a big pile of pre-1693 earthquake nothingness.
We walked up a path into the ruins, and just when we had decided to turn back towards the car and head elsewhere, we heard bells ringing in the distance. We investigated to find a herd of adorable goats clinging to a mountainside, eating the trees and aluminum cans and old underwear, as goats are wont to do.
We admired them and their enormous traditional-looking bells and their ability to eat absolutely anything for a while, and then turned back to the car. When we reached the ruins of the large castle that mark the beginning of the area of Noto Ántica, we heard a soft ringing behind us that slowly grew louder and louder.
Then the goats overtook us – guess we walk slow – and descended the trail next to us into the nearby canyon. No shepherds in sight, though I imagine with the sound of the bells carrying through the hills they don’t need to be nearby all the time.
The car was relocated and we headed off towards the town of Avola, on the coast, which is famous for its almonds. Two wrong turns later, including one that got us stuck behind a giant herd of cows (yes, we have an atlas. It’s Italian and doesn’t include most street names or numbers. Further questions?)
We found the road into Avola. Reaching the center of town, we parked and went off in search of a snack bar.
The town is cut out of the same mold as the rest of the Baroque southeast, it seems, with the strange addition of a bunch of small townhomes with tiled fronts. We weren’t able to find anywhere selling the famed almonds, though we did locate a place that sold us a very good arancino and some stuffed breads for a quick, cheap lunch. It was on the main square, and had been there since the 1850s.
Then, off to Ragusa Ibla. OG Ragusa was knocked over by the earthquake as well. Most of the town elected to rebuild on a nearby hill, thinking it would perhaps be safer – but the old aristocracy decided they wanted to stay right where they were, thank you, and they built Ragusa Ibla.
It kind of looks, at first glance, like the Amalfi Coast if they didn’t paint their houses. Though they’ve really started restoration work in earnest and much of the town is now under scaffolding… or torn apart.
(You want me to walk up what? Yeah, this turned out to be the wrong direction.)
We did eventually locate the Duomo without too much difficulty (though we did have to break into the closed tourist office to find a map – sorry about that, guys, but you should really be open at 12:30). It’s Baroque, which just shocked the pants off of us, I tell you, though they did add a little to the monochrome color scheme visible in Noto and Módica.
And our books said the Duomo would be under scaffolding, and it wasn’t. Yay! We got to see the façade.
Still can’t go inside, though.
We stopped for a glass of local wine at a bar just down the piazza (which is exceptionally long, and lined with gelaterias, restaurants and bars) and then moved on to perhaps the best gelateria we’ve been to in Italy.
Seriously. It’s called Gelateria di Vini (a wordplay – it means Divine Gelateria or Gelateria of Wine) and it’s on the main square in Ragusa Ibla. Buy a ticket into Palermo or Catania – you could be there tomorrow at this time. GO GO GO GO!
Not only did they have some really interesting flavors (Saffron and pine nut? Liquorice? Braghetto wine? Local carob? Cardamom?), they were really well-done and actually tasted like their labels instead of like strange chemicals. We got a cup of the last three I mentioned, as well as a bottle of local Rosolio cinnamon liqueur (because the gelateria is a wine shop too!) and mmmed and aaaahed all the way down through the end of the piazza.
Ragusa Ibla is apparently a town that takes its food very seriously. As we walked through the rest of the main drag, towards the gardens that mark the end of the town, we found a wonderful salumeria and a store that called itself an antica drogheria… an old pharmacy filled with local food items.
The gardens themselves down at the end of the town were lovely for a stroll, though of course it was already dark so we couldn’t see much of our surroundings.
But we had to rush back to the car anyway, because we had a dinner date! Here’s the Duomo by night, on our way.
Yup – Husbear actually called Simona, our tour guide from the castle in Módica, to call her bluff on coming to dinner with us, and she accepted! So we met her back in Módica – she brought her future sister-in-law as protection in case we turned out to be crazy – and we drove out to the “risto-bar” (like an English gastro-pub) where her chef-boyfriend works.
It turned out to be a very shmancy place with insanely cheap prices… Husbear got a steak with pistachio sauce and I had some couscous with veggies and sausage, and we had a really nice bottle of wine for next to nothing. The perks of eating with the chef’s girlfriend…
They didn’t speak much English, which made for a slightly more challenging and exciting evening – did you know that a lot of ESL students have trouble with the words “chicken” and “kitchen” because it’s so easy to transpose the consonants? We also learned a few select Sicilian words….
Can you believe we forgot to take pictures of Simona and her future sister-in-law, Carmen?
We had to be back in Noto by midnight, since the hostel had a curfew, so unfortunately we had to eat and run. Carmen drove us back to Módica, only almost killing us three times (Italian driving is a stereotype for a reason), and we headed back to Noto making our curfew by 20 minutes. An awesome evening.
Tomorrow, we say goodbye to the car and hello to Catania! And Mt. Etna. Woot!
