A Loop Through Noto Antica

April 1, 2023

I’d read in one of Scott Anderson’s journals about the fantastic day ride they’d done into the hills north of Noto so I’d allowed a day to ride and created no less than 5 potential routes. Then last night we turfed all of them in favour of a new route that avoided both SS 115 (we didn’t like it yesterday) and SS 287 (on principle). RWGPS indicated about 2 km of unpaved surface on the new route but we figured we could deal with that. It turned out to be an almost traffic-free adventure!

We started off riding uphill through citrus groves.

I know the previous photo is a lemon blossom because this was on the same tree.

Then we descended and rode through our first ford.

Back up and up some more, then another creek crossing.

Then the road started climbing in earnest. It was rideable, just (for me).

We wondered about these rectangular holes in the cliff face…

This rough concrete surface was pretty good for going up, actually.

Then it turned into this and I started pushing. I think Al rode it.

A while later and we came to the unpaved section, per RWGPS. This is one of the better stretches but we both walked anyway. Deep, loose, large, crushed rock isn’t worth the risk. It wasn’t steep here, at least.

Funny, there wasn’t a sign in our direction!

We hadn’t ridden very far when we came to a sort of crossroads with this monument.

The plaque on the monument. We had come to Noto Antica and were in the middle of what had been a sizeable city—until 1693.

We were standing in what had once been the main piazza.

They’re used to be a church here. In fact, Noto Antica had many large churches and other buildings.

There had been a castle too, at the top of a rise. The main entrance to the archeological park was through what remained of the city wall near the castle.

The switchback road we came up is shown on the upper right.

The map of Noto Antica reproduced on this info sign was drawn by a Franciscan monk just a few years before the 1693 earthquake.

We left Noto Antica to continue towards Testa dell’Acqua. We had only covered 10 km at this point!

At Testa dell’Acqua, we decided to skip the additional 15 km loop to the north and pick up our route towards Noto from here. It was mostly a downhill zoom, gently down along the top of a narrow ridge and then back down into the valley. There were views to both sides and the road surface was mostly excellent.

Our outbound route is somewhere out of sight down in this valley. The cliff with the dry waterfall caught my eye outbound but I didn’t stop then for a photo. Not as good from further away but better than nothing!

We got back into town around 2 and thought we would get some picnic supplies at the nearby grocery and eat in the beautiful scented garden at our accommodation. Unfortunately, both little grocery shops in the area were closed early on a Saturday afternoon so we ended up going for pizza in the tourist zone. It was good pizza, but much more expensive than our original plan.

We wandered up the main tourist drag again and this time, the civic museum was open. It’s housed in the former Monastery of Santa Chiara and is pretty small. There’s a Medieval Section, which includes finds from the area of the Castle and the Church of San Michele in Noto Antica. There’s also the Elvira Pirrone Resso Gallery which has an exhibit of modern sculpture and photographs.

The sarcophagus of Viceroy Nicola Speciale, who died in Noto in 1444 and was buried in the crypt of one of the churches in Noto Antica, found in 1901.

The photography exhibit was very interesting. Most of the photos were of objects languishing in museum storage or private collections. They were very well done.

These images are called simply “11 gennaio 1693” and use multiple exposure techniques to illustrate the effects of the great earthquake.

A little more walking around. Ed especially wanted to see the famous corbels of Palazzo Nicolaci in daylight, having noticed them on our after-dinner walk last night.

An interesting building in the old town but not on the tourist street.

Entrance to Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata

And, of course, a food photo. We had really enjoyed our meal at Trattoria Pizzeria Albunnanzia last night so we went there again tonight. I even remembered to take a photo of my delicious pasta!

Pesto Siciliano with both almonds and pistachios. Yum!

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Today's ride: 30 km (19 miles)
Total: 681 km (423 miles)

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