Broke, then baroque

On Saturday, the VP Finance and I road a bus to Noto, a hill town about 35 km from Siracusa. The attraction: fabulous baroque architecture – palaces, churches, squares, all built by renowned architects of the day as part of reconstruction after the devastating earthquake of 1693 that flattened most towns in southeastern Sicily.

It’s the kind of side trip that perfectly exemplifies the way we want to travel. That is, live and work in one reasonably interesting place (Siracusa) long enough to get past the purely touristic experience, but take little jaunts, like this one to Noto, for the day or overnight, to sight see. (Next week we head to Palermo, three hours away by train, for a full week.)

As a prototype for future excursions, the trip to Noto was generally a success. The VP Finance sometimes gets car sick, especially in motor coaches, but she was fine, even though there were some switch-back roads. We took the bus because the train dumps you 25 minutes from the historic centre, whereas the bus puts you down exactly where you want to start sight seeing.

The day was supposed to be warm and sunny in Siracusa. Noto was only partly sunny and decidedly cooler, presumably because of the altitude. We arrived at about noon and the place was lively. The kids had just got of school (we think it’s half-day Saturdays here.) Teenagers were lounging on the steps of the gorgeous 18th century Duomo, taking in the sun and goofing off. Pensioners were sitting on the benches in the squares.

But by the time we came out of the Duomo – lovely in its way but disappointingly un-gaudy – Noto seemed deserted. This was a little after one. Sicilian lunch hour (three hours actually) has a way of emptying streets. We had the place pretty much to ourselves.

Lunch at Al Buco, recommended in Frommer’s Sicily was disappointing – veal from an elderly calf, oleaginous roast potatoes, uninspired salad. In fairness, we probably ordered the wrong things – meat instead of fish, potatoes instead of pasta. The rest of the day, we happily clambered up and down the hilly streets and ambled back and forth along the main drag, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, snapping pictures of the stunning buildings.

When we were ready to leave, we discovered that buses back to Siracusa were nowhere near as frequent as we had imagined. We had to wait over an hour and a half. Part of the time we spent on a bench in the pretty little Giardini Publicci, watching the kids play and munching beer nuts bought from a peddlar in the park.

More pictures here.