Until they invented drones, a lot of people didn’t realize how dramatic Centuripe looks from the air. Social media regularly shares these night-time photos showing a town all lit up and laid out like an outstretched person across a huge hill-top. We didn't have a drone with us (although we thought about it for this town); and we didn't want to steal anyone’s photo, but google it. The photos are amazing. There are so many lights at night that we were led to believe this is a big city. Not the case. And, another town were there were zero signs of any other tourists on this Friday.



It’s a steep drive up to the town from the valley below, past one of the many typical old railroad stations that dot the landscape in Sicily. There is even a freeway-style stretch of road for the last part of the drive up.






This is the home of red oranges, and banners all over town indicated we had just missed Sicily’s red orange festival in this town the prior week-end. The coffee trailer was probably the last remnant of that.






An elderly man spotted us, as the only tourists in town, from his apartment. He came out and started talking to us. He brushed off our protestations that we didn’t understand Italian and continued to talk. And, talk and talk. He motioned for us to follow him to a high spot, where we saw the valley below. He pointed, and talked at length, with some excitement. We had read that there were some Roman baths below the village. Eventually, we thanked him, and he went away, appearing satisfied we understood everything he talked about.




The main square had a friendly bar owner that wanted to sell us bottled juice with our paninis, but when we said we wanted some blood orange juice (we said "rosso" for red and motioned with a hand turning for fresh squeezed), he asked for our patience. He eventually proudly delivered to our table the reddest fresh juice we had ever tasted.




We walked a good part of the quiet town and eventually watched the few shopkeepers there close up for siesta. For the most part, the buildings were well manicured, and the streets ultra-clean.















Centuripe’s has its Corradino Castle, actually originally built as a Roman mausoleum. Down a long drive, it was closed, and construction activity could be seen.

I really want some fresh blood orange juice and a plate of bruschetta ….

Me too.

Sicily’s rural areas have many looks. We decided to take the slow route from Centuripe, near the center of the island, to Modica, in the far south. It was an 80-mile or so ride and took more than two hours.

Some of it was meandering roads, some long narrow straight-aways. We were surprised at the large number of ruins of old stone farm houses and barns all along the way.

We stopped at one old rail station and googled the town name (Sferro). We learned that this staton had been the site of a significant shoot-out and explosions between German and allied forces in WWII. History everywhere.



As we approached the south, we saw some of the spring wild flowers that would dominate our photos in the next week. We also saw lots of greenhouse-style coverings (some partial, some complete) in some places for miles. And, to our surprise, many of these coverings were over grape vines. We hadn’t seen that anywhere else.

Here is our drive south:

The earthquake of 1693 in Sicily changed everything. It killed 100,000 people, but it also resulted in re-building nearly everything. The rebuild was done in some parts with a flamboyant flair. All of this decorative architecture, known as Baroque, lasted only 50 years, but provides a special character mostly seen in Modica, Noto and Ragusa. It also can be seen to a limited extent all over Sicily. This ornate style is seen largely in churches, but also on old palazzos, for example funny faces on the support columns for balconies.

Our longest base, seven nights, was Modica, and our apartment balcony looked onto one of the notable Baroque churches, in fact, the most famous there. Getting to the upper part of the village, where the church is, for us, first meant navigating lots of traffic in the lower valley part of this busy city. Even with GPS, finding our way to a tiny lane in the upper part of the village, was a challenge, as was parking each of our days there. So, when moving about in Modica, going from upper (Alta) to lower (Bassa), it was easier for us to take the hundreds of stairs between the two areas. And, we did that every day, sometimes multiple times.



Cathedral of St. George from our balcony

It’s generally not easy to get roadside photos in Sicily. There is a lot to see, but the lack of road shoulders and pull-offs, narrow, mostly curved roads, and speeding cars that can come on fast, make it hard to stop.

We made a good decision to go the slower, back way from Modica to Ortigia and were surprised to see hardly any cars or trucks on a Saturday morning. So little traffic, in fact, we simply stopped in the road, multiple times, and even got out to take pictures. And, we were provided the best spring wild flower show of our trip, partly thanks to the zillions of poppies everywhere.

Am loving your pictures, especially the wildflowers. We saw very poppies in Sicily in April, but whole fields of them near Naples, Pompeii too.

Gorgeous! Great time of year to be there.

I realise your length of stay and having a car provided you with opportunity to experience Sicily much more in depth than most, but I’ve enjoyed not just seeing big sights, but the tiny unknown villages, the roads, the rolling hillsides, the street scenes. Appreciate the effort you’ve dedicated to sharing this.

geetika Thanks. We saw wild flowers everywhere, but the explosion of color seemed more in the south of the island, although the yellow ginestra was prominent in northern areas.


thursdaysd Thanks. We have always travelled in the fall, September, October, November in Sicily, Italy and Sardinia. Once, we did the first week in May in the Dolomites and Lake Garda, but this absolutely was the best month of weather we have ever had in Italy.



Adelaidean Thanks. We still have another four weeks of mostly smaller villages and are still going through our close to 14,000 photos.

Palazzolo Acreide and its cemetery are not included in our list of places we visited. We had every intention of stopping to see this town as one of the eight or so best known baroque villages in this part of Sicily. We had also seen photos of its Greek theatre, but we had a choice on this day to spend more time in Ortigia and perhaps then going to another key Baroque city, Noto. And, the outskirts of this town looked uninviting, so we started to move on until we noticed a large parking area near a massive cemetery.

This week, we read a news item about the many private cemeteries in Maine (where we have lived), some of which can no longer be maintained, since younger people have little interest and “perpetual care” funds have all been spent. In Sicily, due to the family attachments to their villages, it is a different story. The huge parking area here was adjacent to two large florist shops, dedicated to this cemetery. We wanted to be respectful and intentionally tried to avoid photographing people here. It wasn’t easy because there were so many, mostly freshening up the fresh flowers throughout.



Palazzolo Acreide

When confronted with limited time in Sicily, many posters on this forum prefer Ortigia as their number one must-see on the island. We have been to Ortigia before, even booked it as a base in one of our Covid-cancelled trips. Saturday was busy, and there were were two cruise ship there, but it seemed almost as busy as Taormina can be.

We were surprised to find a parking space in the massive waterfront pay lot. The island was vibrant with market activity, families and other week-end visitors. It was a perfect day, and we found a nice lunch spot overlooking the water.
















































Castello Maniace sits as the farthest point of the island. Although the moat is long gone, the castle is an architectural gem. Its history includes fort, prison and a home to royals.































The most fascinating thing for us at the castle was a type of collective performance art, where I guess we participated in making it what it is. The near 10,000 square foot floor is covered in mirrored glass. Ancient catapult style balls in bright colors are sitting on the glass, which visitors can walk over and presumably add to the many cracks. Contemporary art mixed with history by Alfredo Pirri, who has one stuff like this all over Italy; the "exhibition" is only open at the castle until December.






Santa Lucia is the patron saint of Siracusa/Ortigia. We saw a sizable band making music in front of the duomo named in her honor. Inside, church goers were sandwiched together trying to touch a large silver statue of the martyr or lift babies atop for photos. There were repeated brief, but loud, chants in Italian from the standing congregation that we later learned were “She was from Syracuse!” We expected a procession to follow (later in the week, we were told), but this was just one part of a week-long celebration that is repeated in even larger fashion in December.









There were sweets everywhere. Beautiful bakeries, many gelato shops and lots and lots of cannoli. Everything here felt festive, so this was one of our few two gelato days (but we agreed ahead of the trip that we would have no waffle cones or other cones and all sizes would be "piccolo" (small) in a cup.

Cruise ships in Ortigia? No!!! My B&B was right above the market and it certainly wasn't that crowded, although there were plenty of evening strollers on the weekend.

The castle was off limits when I was there, nice that you got to see it. Don't recognize the mirrored building.

We were in Ortygia the last week of April and only saw local tourists, in fact I was happy such a beautiful place was under the radar. The weekend saw lots of families, with young children riding bikes and playing, but again mostly locals. Guess we were lucky!

thursdaysd There are several cruise ships that now make regular visits there, but the 4,000 passenger MSC Splendida makes weekly visits during the warmer months. Next year, I am seeing a slightly larger MSC ship scheduled and several visits by a Norwegian ship that is almost as large. We used to cruise, but, for a variety of reasons, no more. Sadly it looks like a growing business in Ortigia.

geetika We also saw a lot of locals, and not the numbers of Americans, and obvious other tourists, as we saw in our two visits later in our trip to Taormina. But it was busy. And, there were tour groups off the two ships.

We thought cruise ships weren’t allowed in Ortigia! We only saw a few large sailing ships from our marina view apartment.

As you know, Ortigia is part of Siracusa, and here is their port schedule for cruise ships: https://cruisedig.com/ports/siracusa-sicily

The last time we were in Ortigia was 2008, and I thought Catania and Palermo then were the only cruise ports. But we also saw one or two in Giardini Naxos, next to Taormina. They seem to allow only smaller ships, less than 1,000 passengers there.

Thank you for this detailed trip report and wonderful photos, am following it closely as we will be in Sicily for 2 weeks this September. Everything is mostly booked, but the car rental prices are giving me real heartburn.

Thank you. Car rentals are expensive, but they appear to be coming down from prices we saw in April. I looked quickly at Auto Europe offerings and see Sicily by Car listed and much less expensive than others in September. That wasn't a choice when we booked. I have read negative things about many car rental companies in Sicily, but I trust Auto Europe. I would book (even if you have to pay upfront) and watch rates, cancel if necessary in a timely fashion and re-book. Sicily is so wonderful, it is worth a little heartburn.

There is also a great Facebook site, Visit Sicily (the one with 90k members); I don't think you have to join; it should be open to anyone. We made 59 posts while in Sicily, with about 1,000 photos. Our Facebook name is "Greg Saba". You can find all our posts by searching Visit Sicily and clicking on that name. There is a lot of good current info on the site. Of course, those posts were made while traveling, and we expect to have the time to provide more detail here.