Modica is the city I chose. Here I decided to stay. For its beauty, for its people, for its history. For its being Sicily, intimate, true, sincere. For its being worldly. For the magic that its stone, in the light of the sunset, can create.
Accursio Ristorante is right in the heart of the historic center: a shop window on Corso Umberto, the walking avenue for centuries, and one on Via Grimaldi, one of the few alleys to retain the shiny paving of the nineteenth-century pavements.
From this fortunate place I like to invite my guests to discover the city, whose main monuments are UNESCO heritage, to amplify the experience of the table with the suggestions of art and history.
A few steps from the restaurant entrance, here are the steps that lead to the churchyard of St. Peter's Cathedral, with its superb staircase surmounted by large statues of the apostles. The late Baroque style is typical of the Iblei, and is the result of the reconstruction following the earthquake of 1693 which destroyed the Val di Noto. You are enchanted by the stone embroidery of its façade, the pride of the local stonemasons. And, once inside, in front of its organ, a monumental work that dates back to 1924 and is made up of 3200 pipes.
The next destination is just 200 meters away. It is the Salvatore Quasimodo Birthplace Museum: here the Nobel Prize winner for literature was born on 20 August 1901. The house, a typical period home, still houses the relics and furnishings of the Milanese apartment as well as documents on his life and the work of the great poet.
A little further on, on the same street, here is the house of another illustrious Modican, the seventeenth-century Enlightenment scholar Tommaso Campailla: a genius of his time, recognized as such by illustrious contemporaries such as Ludovico Muratori and George Berkeley who praised his philosophical writings, his his poems and his medical wisdom (he was the inventor of the "barrels", a particular system of treatment for syphilis, an endemic disease at the time).
You can choose whether to continue downwards, to intercept the church of Santa Maria di Betlem, with parts of architecture dating back to the 14th century and a precious and famous nativity scene. The alternative, or continuation, is a walk uphill to get to the cathedral of San Giorgio. The building, which stands at the top of a staircase of over 250 steps (once the only connection between the lower and upper parts of the city), is considered the most spectacular example of Sicilian late Baroque and is often considered its symbolic monument. . The sixteenth-century altarpiece, the Gaginian Madonna and the sundial are just some of the wonders not to be missed inside.
The walk could be very long, because Modica holds many treasures, but we will stop less than 300 meters from the steps of San Giorgio. That is, to the Castle of the Counts which overlooks the city. The first settlements in the area date back to prehistoric times. In Byzantine times the site became a fortress and in the following centuries it was the seat of the County Governor.
History exudes from these stones and the charm is concentrated on the Clock Tower, symbol of the city and a fascinating terrace that allows an eagle's eye view of the historic center. To admire the unique panorama of what Gesualdo Bufalino called "a town shaped like a split pomegranate". With houses and streets sewn together, piled up on top of each other, magical when the lights come on in the evening, when the time comes to praise so much beauty and keep it in your heart.
From Monday, November 11, we're taking a break to rest after the end of the season.
