Modica and Scicli: the quieter Baroque

Two towns that solved the same earthquake differently

Modica and Scicli sit close enough together, roughly fifteen minutes apart by car, that they are usually visited on the same day, but they are not variations on the same theme. Modica stacks itself vertically along a former riverbed, split into an upper town (Modica Alta) and lower town (Modica Bassa), with two major Baroque churches competing for the skyline from opposite hillsides. Scicli, a short drive south, sits flat in a valley bottom beneath sheer cliffs riddled with abandoned cave dwellings, and its Baroque center reads as calmer and less vertically dramatic — genuinely the quietest of the core Val di Noto towns, and the one most itineraries skip without good reason.

Both were substantially destroyed in the 1693 earthquake and rebuilt within the same general decades as Noto and Ragusa, largely on their own existing footprints rather than a planned new site — which is why both retain a tangled, hillside-following street pattern rather than Noto’s straight Corso. That difference matters for how each town is best walked: Noto rewards a start-to-finish stroll down one axis, while Modica and Scicli both reward a willingness to climb, double back, and take side streets that do not obviously lead anywhere in particular.

Modica Alta: the climb to San Giorgio

Modica Alta, the upper town, is reached by a long series of external staircases climbing away from the valley floor, culminating at the Chiesa di San Giorgio — widely considered the finer of Modica’s two major churches, and one of the clearest examples in the whole Val di Noto grouping of a facade designed to be seen from below, rising in tiers up its own broad staircase toward a bell tower that dominates the skyline from almost anywhere in town.

The climb itself is genuinely part of the experience rather than an obstacle to it: pausing partway up and turning around gives a view back over Modica Bassa’s rooftops that most visitors on a tight schedule never see, because they approach San Giorgio from the top via road rather than climbing up through the old town from below.

Modica Alta’s residential streets, away from the church steps themselves, are quieter and less commercial than Modica Bassa, worth a wander for anyone who wants a sense of the town beyond its two headline churches.

Modica Bassa: shopping streets, San Pietro, and the chocolate shops

Modica Bassa, built over what was once the riverbed running through town, holds the main shopping street (Corso Umberto I) and most of the town’s restaurants and chocolate producers. Its own major church, San Pietro, fronts onto the Corso with statues of the twelve apostles lining its staircase — a different, flatter composition from San Giorgio’s hillside drama, and a useful comparison for anyone starting to notice how the same regional style adapted to different sites.

Modica’s chocolate tradition, a cold-working method introduced under Spanish rule and derived from an Aztec technique that leaves the cocoa butter unrefined and the texture distinctly grainy, has nothing to do with the town’s earthquake-rebuilding story, but the two overlap physically along the same Corso Umberto I storefronts.

The chocolate itself, including which shops are worth a stop and which are coasting on foot traffic, is covered separately in the Modica chocolate guide rather than repeated here. For a route that combines the Baroque walk with a genuine tasting stop, a guided walking tour pairing both churches with a chocolate and scacce tasting covers the two traditions in one outing rather than requiring a separate stop.

A guided walk through both Modica Alta and Modica Bassa is worth considering specifically for the climb up to San Giorgio, where a guide’s commentary on the staircase’s construction and the church’s restoration history adds context that is not obvious from a plaque at the base.

Scicli: the quiet valley town

Scicli sits at the meeting point of three narrow valleys, its historic center built along the valley floor beneath tall limestone cliffs pockmarked with the Chiafura, a dense network of cave dwellings that housed residents into the 20th century and are now abandoned, visible from the town below as dark openings in the rock face rather than a visitable interior attraction in most cases. This setting alone makes Scicli feel structurally different from Modica or Ragusa Ibla, both of which are built on and into hillsides rather than beneath them.

The town center itself, rebuilt after 1693 like its neighbors, is smaller and noticeably quieter than Modica or Ragusa Ibla, with fewer tour groups and a slower pace that suits visitors who have already covered the region’s two headline towns and want one more stop without repeating the same crowd experience. Scicli has also been used repeatedly as a filming location for Italian television productions, a fact worth knowing rather than a reason to visit — the town’s actual appeal is its quiet, unforced version of the same Baroque style rather than any screen connection.

A guided walking tour of Scicli’s Baroque center is a reasonable way to see the town’s key churches and palazzi in about ninety minutes to two hours without needing to work out a self-guided route in a town with less signposted information than Noto or Ragusa.

The Chiafura: Scicli’s cave dwellings

Rising above Scicli’s Baroque center, the cliffs of San Matteo and Colle di San Bartolomeo hold the Chiafura, a dense network of caves carved and enlarged over centuries, first as defensive shelters and later as genuine housing for some of the town’s poorest residents into the early-to-mid 20th century, when conditions there were finally judged unfit for habitation and the caves were abandoned.

Seen from the piazza below, they read as dark irregular openings scattered across the cliff face — a visibly different backdrop from the smooth stone facades of the town itself, and a reminder that Scicli’s history includes a much harder, more recent chapter than its elegant church fronts suggest. Access into the caves themselves is limited and inconsistent rather than a maintained visitor circuit, so the honest expectation for most visitors is viewing them from below rather than climbing up into them.

Scicli on screen

Scicli’s town hall, on the main piazza, has been used repeatedly as a filming location for Il Commissario Montalbano, the long-running Italian television adaptation of Andrea Camilleri’s detective novels, standing in for the fictional police station in the series.

It is a genuinely low-key detail rather than a manufactured attraction — there is no dedicated museum or paid experience built around it in the way some other filming locations elsewhere in Sicily have developed, and visitors specifically chasing screen locations should treat it as one stop among several rather than the reason to come to Scicli. The town’s real case for a visit remains its quieter, valley-floor version of the same post-1693 Baroque rebuilding seen in Modica and Ragusa, not its television credits.

Parking and getting around on foot

Both Modica and Scicli have ZTL restrictions in their historic centers, camera-enforced like the rest of the region, so the practical approach in both towns is to park at the edge of the old center — near the main approach roads into Modica Bassa, or along the perimeter of Scicli’s compact center — and walk in rather than attempt to drive up into Modica Alta’s narrow staircase streets, which are largely pedestrian in any case. The ZTL and parking guide covers how the camera enforcement is applied to rental cars after the fact, which is worth understanding before assuming a quiet-looking side street is open to through traffic.

Combining both towns, or all three with Ragusa

Modica and Scicli sit roughly fifteen minutes apart by car and are commonly combined with Ragusa, another fifteen to twenty minutes from Modica, into a single day covering all three towns — a genuinely full day rather than a relaxed one, given how much walking and how many staircases each town involves.

A private tour covering all three Baroque towns removes the driving and parking questions for visitors who would rather not navigate three separate ZTL zones in one day, each camera-enforced like most Sicilian historic centers — see the ZTL and parking guide for how that enforcement actually works before assuming an empty street is open to drive through.

For a car-based visitor, both towns are also within reach of Marzamemi and the Vendicari reserve to the east, making a longer loop through the southeastern corner of Sicily practical over two or three days rather than a single rushed circuit. The Syracuse and the Val di Noto in 4 days itinerary and Baroque towns and Greek temples in 5 days itinerary both build in time for Modica and, in the longer version, Scicli as well.

Getting there without a car

Modica has a reasonable train and bus connection to Ragusa and onward toward Syracuse, and a shorter, fairly frequent bus link to Scicli, making the two-town combination workable without a rental car for visitors staying in Ragusa or Modica itself.

Connecting onward to Noto or across to Catania without a car is considerably less convenient, since direct public transport between the more spread-out Val di Noto towns is thin — see the wider getting around Sicily guide and Sicily trains guide for what actually connects to what. Anyone building a longer, mostly car-free trip through southeastern Sicily is better off basing themselves in Ragusa or Modica for several nights and taking day trips out to Scicli and Noto, rather than trying to move a base of operations between all four towns in turn.

Eating in Modica and Scicli

Beyond chocolate, Modica’s other genuine specialty is scacce, a folded, filled flatbread distinct from the more familiar arancini found elsewhere on the island — worth trying from a bakery on Corso Umberto I rather than skipping past it for a more generic pizza slice. Ravioli filled with fresh ricotta, often finished with a simple tomato sauce or melted butter and sage, show up on menus across both towns and are a reasonable barometer of a kitchen’s overall quality, since the dish leaves nowhere for shortcuts to hide.

As throughout the Val di Noto, a small per-person coperto at sit-down restaurants is standard and not a sign of overcharging, covered more generally in the Sicily food etiquette guide. Scicli’s restaurant scene is thinner than Modica’s given the smaller number of visitors, which usually means less variance between one trattoria and the next rather than a shortage of decent options.

Best light for photographing both towns

Modica’s stacked churches photograph very differently depending on the time of day: San Giorgio, facing roughly east across the valley, catches direct morning light on its facade, while San Pietro’s flatter, more sheltered position along the Corso holds even, diffuse light for longer into the afternoon.

Visitors trying to catch both churches at their best in a single visit are better off starting at San Pietro in the morning and climbing to San Giorgio later, once the sun has moved enough to light the staircase and facade directly rather than leaving it in shadow. Scicli’s valley setting means its cliffs and cave openings catch dramatic late-afternoon light as the sun drops toward the surrounding hills, a detail worth timing a visit around for anyone specifically interested in photographing the Chiafura from the piazza below.

What a rushed first stop in Modica usually misses

A surprising number of day-trip itineraries treat Modica as a twenty-minute photo stop at the base of the San Giorgio staircase before moving on, which skips almost everything that makes the town worth the detour in the first place: the climb itself, the quieter residential streets of Modica Alta away from the church steps, the shopping street through Modica Bassa, and any real time with the chocolate tradition beyond a single souvenir purchase. Slowing down to an actual half-day, as suggested above, converts what would otherwise be a drive-by photo opportunity into one of the more rewarding stops in the entire Val di Noto grouping.

When to visit

Both towns share the Val di Noto’s climate pattern: April through June and September through October offer the most comfortable walking weather, particularly given how much of a visit to Modica involves climbing exposed staircases with little shade. July and August routinely exceed 35°C, with the stone steps holding heat well into the evening — see Sicily in summer for what that means for a day of walking here. Ferragosto, on 15 August, brings real closures to smaller family-run businesses in both towns, a detail covered in Sicily in August.

Frequently asked questions about Modica and Scicli

What is the difference between Modica Alta and Modica Bassa?

Modica Alta is the upper, older part of town, reached by long flights of steps and narrower streets; Modica Bassa is the lower part along the former riverbed, now built over, where the main shopping streets and most restaurants sit. Both were rebuilt after 1693 and both are worth walking, though most visitors spend more time in Bassa.

Why is Modica associated with chocolate?

Modica preserves a Spanish-introduced, Aztec-derived cold-working method that keeps the cocoa butter unrefined, giving the chocolate a distinctive grainy texture rather than the smooth finish of conventionally conched chocolate. It has nothing to do with the town’s Baroque architecture, but the two traditions coexist in the same historic center.

Is Scicli worth visiting if I have already seen Modica and Ragusa?

Yes, specifically because it is quieter and structurally different — a valley-floor town beneath cave-dwelling cliffs rather than a hillside stack like Ragusa Ibla or a two-tier town like Modica. It rewards visitors who want one more stop without another round of tour buses.

How much time do Modica and Scicli need together?

A half-day for Modica alone, or a full day combining both towns with the short drive between them. Scicli on its own is a two-to-three-hour stop.

Are Modica and Scicli connected by public transport?

Yes, by a short and reasonably frequent bus and train link, though a rental car makes combining both towns with Ragusa or Noto in the same day considerably easier than relying on schedules.

What are Modica’s two main churches?

San Giorgio, in Modica Alta, reached by a long external staircase and generally considered the finer of the two; and San Pietro, in Modica Bassa, fronted by statues of the twelve apostles along its own staircase.