Noto

Village Sicily, Italy

Noto is a small jewel of the Sicilian Baroque. A splendid village perched on a plateau overlooking the Asinaro valley. An important Sicilian, Roman, Byzantine and then Arab center, it was destroyed in its full splendor by the earthquake of 1693, but thanks to the skilful reconstruction, Noto has become a magnificent city of art, a Unesco heritage site.

Defined as the golden stone garden, Noto strikes every visitor for its enchanting and aristocratic atmosphere with the warm tones given by the honey-colored stone. Among its palaces and churches to visit, the cathedral of San Nicolò stands out above all, the highest representative of the Baroque style in Sicily. You will be amazed by the elegance and harmony of the church, in fact its facade has, along the sides, two bell towers, one of which actually houses the bell, while in the other there is a clock. There are also the inevitable columns, surmounted by Corinthian capitals, which are arranged on the sides of the side entrances and near the main entrance, where there is an important portal by a sculptor originally from Noto. The scenographic show exercised by the church is then amplified by the imposing eighteenth-century staircase.