I monumenti
Tutti i monumenti, città per città
I luoghi e i capolavori attorno a cui vale la pena costruire una giornata.
CataniaUNESCOEtnaEurope's tallest active volcano, summit craters, lava-built slopes, Etna wine countryEtna smokes over eastern Sicily at 3300 meters and rarely sleeps a full season. Cable car and four-wheel drives climb through old lava to the summit craters, while vineyards prosper on the black soil below.Pianifica la visita
StromboliUNESCOStromboliLighthouse of the Mediterranean, constant eruptions, Sciara del Fuoco, night boat watchingStromboli has erupted on a reliable schedule for at least two thousand years, flaring over the sea like the Mediterranean's lighthouse. Evening boats drift off the Sciara del Fuoco to watch incandescent rock roll into the water.
ModicaModicaTwo-level Baroque town, San Giorgio's staircase, Aztec-method chocolate, gorge-side stackingModica stacks two Baroque towns up the sides of a gorge, with San Giorgio's church riding the upper one like a wedding cake on 250 steps. Its other claim is chocolate, still ground cold the way the Spanish brought from the Aztecs.
EriceEriceMountaintop medieval triangle, Venus Castle, cloud-wrapped lanes, Genovese pastriesErice keeps its medieval triangle 750 meters above the sea, often inside its own cloud. The Norman castle stands on Venus's ancient sanctuary, and the convent sweets at Maria Grammatico's are reason enough for the cable car.
LipariLipariAeolian main island, citadel acropolis, obsidian and pumice coasts, archaeological museumThe largest Aeolian island gathers its history onto a walled acropolis above the harbor, with one of the Mediterranean's best small museums inside. Around the coast, white pumice beaches and black obsidian flows tell the volcanic story plainly.
Piazza ArmerinaUNESCOVilla Romana del Casale3500 square meters of Roman mosaic, bikini girls, Great Hunt corridor, mudslide preservationA medieval mudslide sealed this hunting villa's floors, preserving the richest Roman mosaics in existence. The Great Hunt runs sixty meters of beasts and ships, a few rooms from the famous athletes in their bikinis.
CastelvetranoSelinunteVast Greek temple ruins, Temple E by the sea, acropolis over the dunes, one of Europe's largest archaeological parksThe Greek colony of Selinus flourished for two centuries before Carthage erased it in 409 BC, leaving temple columns scattered like felled trees above the shore. Its 270 hectares form one of the largest archaeological parks in Europe, with Temple E standing re-erected against the sea wind.
AgrigentoValle dei TempliTemple of Concordia, ridge of Doric temples, almond blossom season, Greek AkragasAncient Akragas lined its sacred ridge with Doric temples facing the sea, and the Temple of Concordia survives almost intact among them. In February the valley blooms with almond blossom between the columns.
Calatafimi-SegestaSegestaUnfinished Doric temple, hilltop Greek theatre, Elymian city ruinsThe Elymians raised a Doric temple here around 420 BC and never finished it: the columns were left unfluted and the cella was never built. On Monte Barbaro above, a Greek theatre opens onto hills that run down to the Gulf of Castellammare.
PalermoCattedrale di PalermoArab-Norman layers, royal tombs of Frederick II, rooftop walkways, catalan porchPalermo's cathedral is eight centuries of Sicily in one building: Norman walls, Arab inscriptions, a Catalan porch and a Baroque dome. Frederick II rests inside in porphyry, and the rooftop walk surveys the whole pink-domed city.
MonrealeDuomo di Monreale6400 square meters of gold mosaic, Christ Pantocrator apse, Benedictine cloister, William II's rivalry with PalermoWilliam II answered his grandfather's Palermo with a cathedral sheathed in over six thousand square meters of gold mosaic. The colossal Pantocrator fills the apse, and the cloister's two hundred paired columns each carry a different carved story.
OrtigiaOrtigiaIsland heart of Syracuse, Arethusa spring, Baroque lanes, sea-walled market townSyracuse began on this small island, where the freshwater Arethusa spring still rises beside the sea as the myths required. Its lanes pack twenty-seven centuries into a kilometer, from Apollo's temple to Baroque balconies.
CefalùDuomo di CefaluTwin-towered Norman facade, earliest Sicilian Pantocrator, fortress church above the beach, Roger II's vowRoger II vowed a church if he survived a storm at sea, and Cefalu's twin-towered cathedral was the payment. Its apse holds the most tender of Sicily's Pantocrators, gazing down a nave begun in 1131.
PalermoTeatro MassimoItaly's largest opera house, perfect acoustics, Godfather III finale, grand staircaseItaly's largest opera house crowned Palermo's belle epoque confidence in 1897, its dome engineered for acoustics praised ever since. Cinema fixed its staircase in memory with the final scenes of The Godfather Part III.
PalermoCappella PalatinaGolden Byzantine mosaics, muqarnas wooden ceiling, Norman royal chapel, three cultures in one roomRoger II's palace chapel sets Byzantine gold mosaics under an Arab muqarnas ceiling on a Latin plan, three civilizations agreeing perfectly in one room. The Christ Pantocrator in the apse presides over the finest interior of Norman Sicily.
OrtigiaUNESCODuomo di SiracusaDoric columns inside the walls, temple of Athena conversion, Baroque facade, 2700 years of worshipThe Doric columns of Athena's temple still stand inside the cathedral's walls, doing structural work after twenty-five centuries. A swaggering Baroque facade was added after the 1693 earthquake, the newest layer on Sicily's longest-running sanctuary.
CataniaCattedrale di Sant'AgataSaint Agatha's shrine, lava-and-limestone Baroque, Norman apses surviving quakes, Bellini's tombCatania's cathedral wears the city's two materials, black lava and white limestone, over Norman apses that have shrugged off earthquakes and eruptions alike. Bellini rests inside, and Saint Agatha's February festival fills the square beyond capacity.
SiracusaOrecchio di DionisioS-curved limestone cavern, uncanny acoustics, Caravaggio's name, tyrant's listening legendCaravaggio named this ear-shaped quarry cave after the tyrant said to have eavesdropped on prisoners through its echo. A whisper at the back really does return amplified from twenty-three meters of curved limestone.
TaorminaTeatro Antico di TaorminaGreek theatre framing Etna, sea-and-volcano backdrop, summer festival stage, brick Roman scaenaThe Greeks aimed this theatre at Etna and the sea, and no stage set since has matched the view through its broken scaena. Concerts and film festivals still play to the horseshoe each summer.
PalermoQuattro CantiBaroque octagonal crossroads, four facades of kings and saints, theatre of the sun, crossroads of old PalermoWhere Palermo's two main streets cross, four identical Baroque facades stack fountains, kings and patron saints into an octagonal room of city. Locals call it the Theatre of the Sun, since one facade is always lit.
CataniaCastello UrsinoFrederick II's seaside keep stranded inland, 1669 lava surround, civic museum, Sicilian Vespers parliamentFrederick II built Ursino on the shoreline, then the 1669 eruption wrapped it in lava and pushed the sea half a kilometer away. The moated keep that hosted the Sicilian Vespers parliament now holds Catania's civic collections.
NotoUNESCOCattedrale di NotoHoney-stone Baroque facade, grand staircase, rebuilt dome, golden hour glowNoto rebuilt itself in honey-colored limestone after the 1693 earthquake, and its cathedral crowns the result above a ceremonial staircase. The dome collapsed in 1996 and rose again faithful to the original, glowing at every sunset.
SiracusaTeatro Greco di SiracusaAeschylus premiered here, rock-cut cavea, classical drama festival, Neapolis quarriesSyracuse cut its theatre straight into the hillside rock in the fifth century BC, and Aeschylus staged premieres on it. Every spring the classical drama festival returns Greek tragedy to the same stone seats.
TaorminaIsola BellaPebble tombolo island, nature reserve, Lady Trevelyan's gardens, cove snorkelingA pebble causeway appears and disappears with the tide between Taormina's beach and its tiny wooded island. Once an English noblewoman's garden, Isola Bella is now a nature reserve ringed by the coast's clearest water.
MarsalaSaline dello StagnoneWindmill-studded saltscape, pink evaporation pools, Mozia island, sunset mirror lagoonsBetween Trapani and Marsala, salt has been harvested from shallow lagoons since the Phoenicians, who left their island of Mozia in the middle. Windmills and white salt pyramids stand over pools that turn pink and gold at evening.
EnnaCastello di LombardiaSicily's largest castle, Pisan tower panorama, navel of Sicily, six surviving towersAt the island's exact center, Enna's vast castle held twenty towers behind its long walls; six remain. From the Pisan tower the view runs to Etna across half of Sicily, the panorama that earned Enna its title of the island's belvedere.
RagusaUNESCORagusa IblaBlue-domed San Giorgio, tangled medieval plan rebuilt Baroque, Giardino Ibleo, film-set lanesAfter the great earthquake, old Ragusa rebuilt itself in place, Baroque palaces threaded along its medieval tangle. The blue dome of San Giorgio floats over lanes that end in the palm-lined Giardino Ibleo above the valley.
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Città
Città per città
Dove si concentrano i monumenti in Sicilia.
- 4 monumentiPalermo
- 4 monumentiSiracusa
- 3 monumentiCatania
- 2 monumentiLipari
- 2 monumentiTaormina
- 1 monumentoAgrigento
- 1 monumentoCalatafimi-Segesta
- 1 monumentoCastelvetrano
- 1 monumentoCefalù
- 1 monumentoEnna
- 1 monumentoErice
- 1 monumentoMarsala
- 1 monumentoModica
- 1 monumentoMonreale
- 1 monumentoNoto
- 1 monumentoPiazza Armerina
- 1 monumentoRagusa