An elderly woman in a little car, noticing that we were obviously tourists, maybe the only ones in town, flagged us down. She gestured that we must head down a street we probably would have avoided. We weren't sure what she wanted us to see, but after a block, we came on a little square with a beautiful baroque church. Unfortunately, it was closed for siesta, as was virtually all of the town. The surprising thing is that we never really heard of Vittoria, but it had nine (9) long pedestrian only blocks of shops and eating places. Everythingwas closed for siesta, except for one American-style barbecue place, with a fast food look. Food and service were definitely a couple notches above. An unplanned stop, but a place we should return at a different time of day.

This seemed like a small town, so we wondered how it supported such a massive commercial avenue, and then we saw that the population was 50,000. The community’s benefactor in 1600 was a Countess Vittoria, and the community has been vibrant since then. It is known for good local wines and sun-dried tomatoes. And, we have read that the theatre next to one of the baroque churches is quite opulent.

My numbering for days got a bit jumbled. Not that anyone cares, but the beach towns should have been Day 9 and Donnfugata Castle and Vittoria Day 10. We are moving fast but not that fast.

Comiso was an unscheduled stop on the way back to our base in Modica. And, it turned out to be a lesson in spending more time planning, even on a whirlwind trip. We learned after we got home that Comiso is known for a Buddhist temple, or peace pagoda, and we totally missed it. We did see more striking baroque churches and the old fish market while there.

Modica had been our base for one week. We had seen a lot of antique Fiats parading around town together during the week, but our camera only caught the last of a dozen Fiats that regularly pop out of unexpected alleyways at varying times.

Tourists here usually can be found in Modica Bassa, the lower part of the city where most restaurants and shops can be found. The landmark Cathedral of St. George is about 250 steps up from the lower area. We have been staying dozens more steps above, but we decided to see another striking non-touristy Baroque church, perhaps another 250 steps above, in an area mostly populated by locals. After that visit, we went back down, finding a chic chocolate shop that, among other things, has an unusual aging cellar. In that place, they infuse flavors into chocolate, for example, by placing herbs or flowers or fruits in a closed container with the chocolate. Our final stop was at a little informal family-owned restaurant that we liked for pasta, lentil soup, and tomato salads. While there, we watched the owner working a big pot of what was turning into fresh ricotta. As we said earlier, we were not fond of most of the cannoli we had in Sicily, but the ones from this place, aptly named Ricotta & Company, were our favorites.

Mid-October. We'll be staying in the Ragusa area for 4 nights: 2 nights at Baglio Occhipinti, closer to Vittoria, and 2 nights in Ragusa at Giardino sul Duomo.

Our first overcast day, with forecast of possible rainy weather for the next several days, so we decided to take a quick look at two large seafront cities on the way to Agrigento, our next base for three nights, and the famed Valley of the Temples.

First stop was Gela, and, frankly, after seeing the oil refinery there and little else of appeal, we continued our trip north. As we rode through Gela and later Licata, the only oncoming traffic was classic cars and sports cars, part of a car rally and tour. Most of the photos of the cars were from our car window as we were driving.

We saw a bit more of Licata than Gela, including the marina there. Our advice: skip both of these cities. The only saving grace were the cars.

Those cars!! Lucky timing.

Valley of the Temples is one of the most famous historic sites in all of Sicily. The park-like grounds are just below the city of Agrigento. It was built 2700 years ago. Our entry ticket included a visit to restored gardens, which, unfortunately, we did not see due to a brief bit of rain.

The Girgentana goats are threatened with extinction from southwest Sicily, and this display is part of an effort to save them.

We loved Agrigento as a base. The old city had a vibrant local scene with friendly people, nice shops, bakeries, restaurants and bars, the kind of place we could easily spend a week or more. A city with a sense of humor. The weather cleared. and we first walked up and took a tour of the duomo, including the bell tower, with sweeping views over the Valley of the Temples to the sea. The most memorable cathedral of our trip. And, we love old theaters, and this one didn’t disappoint.

We loved the little town of Agrigento and would have liked to spend an extra day there, but we had to move on to Ortygia/Sirscusa. I remember that Bar Athenea, we stayed at a B&B on that street!

The archeological site of course is extraordinary.

Saracens attacked Sicily in the 1500’s by climbing a rocky cliff, carved out by the sea and wind into what looks like a giant staircase. Locals wrongly called them “Turks”, thus Turkish steps. On a good day (not this one), they are popular with sun worshipers/beach-goers, although there are plenty of warning signs about danger from slippery conditions. After Valley of Temples, this is the next largest attraction in Agrigento area. Not this day.

Funny day, back and forth between rain and dense fog and sunshine. Only a couple of vehicles near Turkish steps, one hoping to sell produce and two of those sports cars from the day before auto rally. Eeerily, we will pass them both two more times, including a remote spot, as the day progresses.

That bar had a good, but loud, play list of classic Italian songs.

Remembering the town of Agrigento, above the Valley of the Temples. When we visited the town/ small city there were so many homeless begging and blocking the streets that it made visiting difficult. It sounds like Agrigento has improved significantly.

Didn't see any of that. Except for Catania and Palermo, we didn't see any military presence in Sicily that we recall except Agrigento. Maybe their presence has discouraged that?

We were there mid to end April and didn’t see any homeless, at least not in significant numbers. Nor a military presence.

Sciacca (pronounced "shack-uh") is a busy seaside town. Lots of traffic bottlenecks, and, to our surprise, one of those two sports cars we saw earlier allowed us to move into a lane in the packed downtown. We eventually opted to park outside the town, near the water, where parking was available, and we walked up a long set of stairs to a city that seemed to be in an early siesta. We got a mixed feeling about this place, since there were some nice looking streets, shops and restaurants (all closed), ancient gates, and ruins of an old castle that was partly destroyed in the culmination of a civil war between two families in the 1500’s. One of those families built a nearby church that survives in all of its beauty except for a filthy vestibule. Th busiest place, while we were there, was the local betting parlor, where we saw cars regularly stopped to get car service, to the chagrin of the cars behind them.

You do seem to have been dealing with a lot of stairs! Doubt my knees are up to that these days.

Thanks again for the TR and the photos.

Thank you. I had to give up tennis to rebuild my knees after an injury and a couple months of hobbling late last year so that we could walk our 220 miles for this trip (a lot of it definitely uphill and not all of it on surfaces as nice as stairs).

Our apartment host told us to skip plans to go to the hilltop village of Caltabellotta. We won’t be able to see its spectacular sea vistas because of the unsettled weather. Since the weather seemed to change every 15 minutes, we didn’t listen. We didn’t pass another car on the 30 minute drive up, although there were some single lanes and pea soup fog. A wandering dog came out of the fog, just before we again saw those two sports cars for the third time today. Nobody else. Signs warned us of “danger”, which we assume meant on a normal day. Soon our GPS alerted us that we arrived in the town and simply had to go up one more short road to reach the center. We could see nothing. We started up a very narrow, beat up, pothole ravaged road, and could not see more than 10 feet in front of us. The hill quickly became the steepest climb we have ever experienced. We put it in first gear, hit the gas pedal and prayed there would be nobody trying to come down. We made it, but still nothing we could see at the top, and we simply headed back down to civilization and better weather, not knowing until the next day what the town looked like (this time at a distance).

This is my favorite series of photos so far…the dog, the fog, the rutted road, the sports car with the red side mirrors, beware rocks falling…pericolosa…a dream scape.
and then crystal clear Caltabellotta

OK. We had some extra time on our hands after the fog disaster and remembered seeing an online recommendation for a Castle just outside Sciacca. The skies had cleared at lower elevations and we quickly found the so-called "Castle Incantato", which is not a castle at all, but perhaps the most bizarre find of our trip.

The park, with thousands of sculpted heads, did put a smile on our faces (even though you will see few smiles on these faces). A Sicilian fisherman, turned eccentric artist, the late Filippo Bentivegna, said these heads and faces represented mostly unhappy times when he left for some time in the USA. Gardens, caves and some tree carvings included. And even a 15 foot tall asparagus look-alike (real plant that comes out of a dying agave plant).