Themed picks · Catania · Baroque
Baroque towns near Catania, Sicily: 8 in and around the Val di Noto
By Peter Benei
8 comuni · within 120 minutes of Catania · drive times by road from the city center
Catania itself is the first of them, rebuilt in black lava stone after the 1693 earthquake. Siracusa is 54 minutes away, Caltagirone 72 and Noto 83, and Modica and Ragusa are closer to two hours.
More in Sicily, or every way into the towns.
The towns
1Catania · Sicily · 14 min from Catania
Catania
The Baroque center is UNESCO-listed and built in black lava stone. It has a station.
2Siracusa · Sicily · 54 min from Catania
Siracusa
Ortigia's Baroque in honey-colored stone, on top of the Greek city. It has a station.
3Siracusa · Sicily · 51 min from Catania
Sortino
The gateway to the Pantalica necropolis, and a town of honey.
4Catania · Sicily · 1 h 12 min from Catania
Caltagirone
Ceramics and Baroque, with 142 majolica-tiled steps and a place in the UNESCO listing. It has a station.
5Siracusa · Sicily · 1 h 18 min from Catania
Palazzolo Acreide
Rebuilt in late Baroque after 1693, over the Greek colony of Akrai, and UNESCO-listed.
6Siracusa · Sicily · 1 h 23 min from Catania
Noto
The capital of Sicilian Baroque, all golden limestone. It has a station.
We write letters from the Italian towns we visit: the town, what is worth eating there, and when to turn up. It is free, and you can leave whenever you like.
About this stretch
The Val di Noto is the south-east corner of Sicily, the part that was levelled by the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt in a single architectural sweep between 1693 and roughly 1750. The result is the densest concentration of Late Baroque in Europe: eight UNESCO-listed centers (Catania, Noto, Modica, Ragusa, Scicli, Palazzolo Acreide, Militello in Val di Catania, Caltagirone) plus another dozen comuni in their orbit. Walking any of them is walking through a single 60-year architectural moment that ran the length of the south coast.
Catania is the right base for two reasons. First, the airport (CTA) and the rail spine (Catania-Siracusa, Catania-Caltagirone-Gela) put the entire Val di Noto inside two hours by car. Second, the city itself is the largest Late Baroque center in the region, with the via dei Crociferi as a single 200-meter concentration of churches and the Piazza del Duomo holding the elephant fountain at its center. A few days in Catania, then a day each in Noto, Ragusa, Modica, and you have the full corpus.
Why Catania is the base
Catania holds the largest fish market in the south (La Pescheria, daily except Sunday), the via Etnea spine that runs straight up toward the volcano, and a base of Late Baroque architecture that competes with Noto and Ragusa as the architectural payoff of the trip. The cooking closes the loop: pasta alla Norma was invented in Catania, and the granita with brioche at sunrise after a late dinner is a Catania ritual that the inland baroque comuni cannot replicate.
When to go
April, May, June, September and October. The Sicilian summer is genuine (July and August reach 40°C in the inland Val di Noto comuni), but the spring and autumn windows hit the food at its broadest (artichokes and broad beans in spring; tuna in May along the coast; granita season runs March through October; pistachios from Bronte harvest in September). The Baroque facades are at their best in the low autumn light.
Questions people ask
- What is the Val di Noto?
- The south-east corner of Sicily, including the provinces of Catania, Ragusa and Siracusa. The name refers to the 1693 earthquake that levelled the region and the unified Late Baroque rebuilding that followed. UNESCO listed eight of its centers in 2002 as a serial property under the title 'Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto'.
- Which Val di Noto town is the best to visit?
- Noto for the most concentrated Baroque axis (the via Nicolaci, the Cathedral, the Palazzo Nicolaci); Ragusa for the dramatic two-town layout (Ragusa Superiore on the upper hill, Ragusa Ibla in the lower); Modica for the chocolate (a 15th-century recipe with no fat or sugar binders) plus the church of San Giorgio; Scicli for the calmer pace and the Inspector Montalbano TV-series tie-in.
- Is the drive from Catania to Noto easy?
- Yes. The A18 motorway from Catania to Siracusa connects to the SS115, then onto Noto. About 90 minutes door-to-door without traffic. The same route covers Modica (about two hours) and Ragusa (about two hours). Renting a car at Catania airport is the standard way.
- Can I see Mount Etna from these towns?
- From most of them, yes. Catania, Acireale, Caltagirone and the inland Etna-ring comuni (Castiglione, Linguaglossa) have direct sightlines. The further south you go in the Val di Noto, the more the volcano recedes into the horizon. Noto and Ragusa have it as a distant silhouette on clear days.
How we picked these · We took every Sicilian town in our catalogue within two hours of Catania by car (34 of them), kept the 23 with a UNESCO listing, Borgo più bello or Bandiera Arancione status, and ranked them with UNESCO weighted heavily, so the famous Val di Noto centers rank above closer but less recognized Etna-side comuni. The two-hour radius is what brings the Modica and Ragusa drives inside scope.
