Modica's chocolate is worked cold, the way the Spanish learned it from the Aztecs: grainy, pure, now IGP-protected — the historic chocolate shops along the corso are compulsory stops. The town around them is a two-level Baroque crèche, UNESCO-listed with the Val di Noto: the cathedral of San Giorgio rises on its theatrical staircase above the rooftops.
Salvatore Quasimodo, Nobel laureate in literature, was born here in 1901: his birth house is open to visits. Upper and Lower Modica stitch together through stairways that turn gold at sunset; the "mpanatigghi" — meat-and-chocolate pastries — are the most disarming taste.
Near Modica
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
