On June 3, we picked up our rental car in Ortigia and headed out onto the back roads of southeast Sicily to the baroque town of Ragusa. That part of Sicily was heavily damaged by earthquake in the 1600s and towns like Ragusa were rebuilt, much of it in the baroque style of architecture, with plenty of ornate detail. We would actually see the most extreme example of baroque architecture later in Lecce in Puglia, but southeastern Sicily has numerous Baroque towns, such as Modica and Noto.
The first example of baroque architecture that we see is the Church of San Sebastian in a town called Palazzolo Acreide, plenty of ornate detail on facade. But we haven't seen anything uber-baroque yet...
Ragusa is a delightful hill-top town, and we spent 3 nights visiting there, and stayed at the Il Barocco hotel (naturally). In Ragusa, we came across a rather bizarre but highly entertaining annual ritual. More on that later.
The courtyard and entrance to Il Barocco, which lived up to its TripAdvisor reputation, and included excellent breakfasts to get our days started and terrific little wrapped cookies to take with us...the pistachio/almond ones were the best!
Our room - #106 - ground floor, middle window...
Our first look at Ragusa...with the Duomo di San Giorgio on the left and the Chiesa di San Giuseppe on the right...
and some of its narrow lanes...
There's always someone's laundry hanging somewhere....
and stairways, it is a hill-top town after all...
the magnificent Duomo...
We so enjoy Italy's Piazzas ...Piazza Duomo in front of Duomo San Giorgio...
especially on a warm summer's night...temperatures during the day were in the high 30sC...
an impressive sight on a quarter-moonlit night...
San Giorgio's church bells bringing back memories of hearing Ave Maria as a child, likely at St. Malachy's back in Montreal...
We like to notice the little things too when we travel somewhere unfamiliar to us....a novel way to secure your recycling before it is picked up...maybe Rome could learn from this.....
or the local flora....
We enjoyed several restaurants in Italy, notably La Bettola in Ragusa, as well as Siculish in Ortigia, and Francesca's in Matera, but this one, Trattoria Ai Lumi in Ragusa, wasn't one of them. With an all-Italian menu, one of the servers offered to help. We thought we had ordered one fish to split between us, for 23 Euros, less than $30Cdn. The fish was ok, but nothing special. But the bill sure was special, and not in a good way - it showed the fish was 60 Euros, almost $80Cdn. For one fish! When I questioned it, the server pretty much said too bad, that's what you ordered. Needless to say, my trip advisor review wasn't complimentary. $80 and it sure wasn't BC Sockeye Salmon.
La Bettola (The Tavern) on the other hand was excellent....(photo courtesy Trip Advisor)
My spaghetti alla siciliana was served wrapped in paper at La Bettola, great food and excellent value...
Our table....(photo courtesy Trip Advisor)....
But the Ai Lumi was the only negative food experience in Ragusa as we certainly enjoyed a gelato under a parasole at Gelati Di Vini in the Piazza Duomo!
The next day we took a short drive to Modica...another hilltop baroque town nearby. We discovered something about Modica when we got there. Modica is more of hill-SIDE town, not hill-TOP town. So in that heat, we hopped onto the tourist train - naturally called the Trenino Barocco - to get around instead of walking.
A comfortable way to see Modica but the tour commentary was often difficult to hear over the ambient noise:
The train showed us that most of the sights of Modica were churches, Baroque churches. We figured it just wasn't worth climbing in that heat to see more Baroque churches so we visited the main church - Chiesa di San Pietro - and yes, that would be enough climbing for this day...
The interior of San Pietro...
with the church organ high above at the back....
We returned to Ragusa and it was then that we witnessed that rather bizarre ritual in the Duomo di San Giorgio. We were walking by the church when we heard the organ - it didn't sound melodic, more like someone just pounding away at the keys....so we investigated...
It turned out that the weekend before was the big Festa di San Giorgio in Ragusa. Thousands of people cram the Piazza for 3 nights as San Giorgio is paraded around town atop his horse against a backdrop of booming cannon, pealing church bells, military bands, and fireworks. It appears that one part of the Festa was reenacted the following weekend when we were there.
With the church organ blaring, the men took turns yelling and carrying San Giorgio and his horse to the front of the church, then back into the church, back to the front of the church, and finally returned him to his resting place in a alcove high on a church wall.
It was a bizarre but highly entertaining ritual to stumble across, totally unexpected.
Our last night in Ragusa, San Giorgia in the colours of the Italian flag, under a quarter moon...
The next morning, June 6, we left Ragusa to return to Ortigia for one night, where we returned our rental car and later board the train from Siracusa to Bari.
Arrivederci San Giorgio...
Arriverderci Ragusa....
I had booked with Budget way back in September 2021 for $204 CAD with collision damage insurance but with deductible, using my credit card insurance to cover the deductible if something happened. That's a good rate for 4 days, especially since car rental fees have increased significantly since last year.
Having booked so far in advance, I kept checking to see if there was a better deal around. And I found one, $220CAD but with full insurance and zero deductible - removing any concern about what would happen if the car was damaged in any way or stolen. And that was with a company based in Montreal called Europauto - I had never heard of them before. I was reluctant but felt better about dealing with a Canadian company, so I booked it. It was with the Avis location in Ortigia and all went well with our Opel Corsa. I will use Europauto next time we are in Europe (2023, 2024, 2025???).
After we returned the car, we walked over the bridge from Ortigia a couple of blocks to the Piccolo Hotel Casa Mia. It was a small - Piccolo is Italian for small - but charming hotel not far from the train station. (photo courtesy Trip Advisor)...
We then walked back across the bridge onto Ortigia to enjoy it one last time.
In Ortigia, we stopped at a typical tourist shop to buy a couple of hats. Panama hats to keep us from the hot sun for the rest of the trip. We chatted a bit with the young man selling us the hat. He was from Afghanistan. So two Canadians bought two Panama hats, both made in China, from someone from Afghanistan, while in Sicily which is part of Italy.
We returned to Siculish since it was so good the first time. With more than we could eat, the management insisted on giving us a discount, in spite of our protestations "it was so good!", since we couldn't finish it. Far different experience than at Ai Lumi just a few days earlier...
Unlike in Canada, tap water is not served in Italian restaurants. Water must be purchased - either naturale or frizzante - by the bottle. Not a great environmental situation, but when in Rome...
Guess I got tipsy right after the first sip....
We had a 730am departure the next morning, so at the Erminio Bar next door to the Piccolo....where it appears we met a Saint...we drank our coffee in the traditional way standing at the bar...
At the Erminio Bar where "now I would not like to make risky comparisons but for years I have been turning water into coffee", they really like their coffee....
Tutti a bordo!
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I very much enjoyed your blog for its travel information and humor! We are visiting Sicily this spring and Ragusa Ibla and Ortigia are 2 of our stops so thanks for covering both so well as well as your wonderful photos.
ReplyDeleteThanks Ria. I so glad you enjoyed our blog and found it helpful to plan your trip. I'm sure you will thoroughly enjoy Sicily. Have a great time!
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