Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
SYRACUSE & THE SOUTHEAST
Home to Sicily's most beaufitul baroque towns and Magna Graecia's most magnificent an-
cient city, the southeast is one of Sicily's most compelling destinations. The classical
charms of Syracuse are reason enough to visit, but once you leave the city behind you'll
find an evocative checkerboard of river valleys and stone-walled citrus groves dotted with
handsome towns. Shattered by a devastating earthquake in 1693, the towns of Noto,
Ragusa and Modica are the superstars here, rebuilt in the ornate and much-lauded Sicilian
baroque style that lends the region a cohesive aesthetic appeal. Writer Gesualdo Bufalino
described the southeast as an 'island within an island' and, certainly, this pocket of Sicily
has a remote, genteel air - a legacy of its glorious Greek heritage.
