How did we lose a whole day?

Hello friends, today we are taking you along to the UNESCO cities of Noto and Siracusa. They are beautiful places with their unique Sicilian Baroque styles.

Noto

The weather has been super. We could not have asked for better winter days. Another boon is that, this being low season, we basically have had these destinations to ourselves. No maddening tourists crowds anywhere. The flip side may be that, without the crowds you lose some of the atmosphere, and several stores and restaurants are closed for the winter season, however overall, everything has been A1, and the prices are lower to boot. Below are pictures from the town of Noto.

Noto's Cathedral

The city's theater

This is the most beautiful stairway we ever saw!

Ornate balconies

A view of Noto through a lemon grove. This is truly citrus country!

We had a beautiful visit to these two towns; lunch in Noto, and a late afternoon / evening visit to Siracusa with a terrific dinner in a restaurant built over some ancient baths. Here is a series of pictures from the latter.

The fountain of Diana

Piazza Duomo

The baths under the restaurant where we dined

Piazza Duomo after dark

The Cathedral

Today we had planned a trip to the ancient Greek temples of Agrigento, but when I woke up I felt like I needed a day of rest, so we spent the morning locally, shopping at Catania’s sprawling market, and postponed our Agrigento trip until tomorrow. Then I received a message from the owner of the little house we are renting, advising us of the check-out procedure for tomorrow morning. I looked back on our reservation, and indeed we only booked through tonight, which means that we will not be able to go through with our Greek temples visit (sigh, it was going to be the highlight of our visit to Sicily). I don’t know how I made this mistake, but every trip carries with it some form of mis planning. I guess we’ll just have to come back.

Today at lunch in Catania

I hope you enjoy this pictorial post of Noto and Siracusa. Tomorrow we will be bidding goodbye to Sicily and begin our travel northward into the peninsula. Until the next blog!