Our tour will start by picking you up from your location, driving in the south of the island to visit the most beautiful Sicilian Baroque among the charming towns of Noto , Modica and Ragusa.
This town rises on the southern spurs of the Hyblaean (Ibla) Hills, in a region marked by the complexity of its system of river valleys, which constrict the towns of Ragusa and Ibla between the depressions dug out by the San Leonardo and San Domenico streams, tributaries of the Irminio cathment basin. Archaeological studies and the existence of ancient tombs dug into the rock support the theory that the place has been inhabitated since prehistoric times, to be exact since the Bronze Age.
This was certainly the site of the Sicel town known as Hybla Haraea which establisched relations with the Greek settlers from Camarina, a centre founded by Syracuse. We have little information about the Roman Hibla, which was probably raised by the vandals. Rebuilt by Dalmatian colonists from Ragusa, who gave it the name of there native place (seventh century A.D.), it was fortified in the Byzantine age by a ring wall, in order to resist the frequent raids of Saracen pirates.
In the first half of the ninth century Ragusa fell into Arab hands. With the coming of the Normans, in the eleventh century, it was made a county, and a century later its jurisdiction was extended to include Modica. It became a feud of the Chiaramontes, then passed into the hands of the Aragonese and the Henriquez. Seriously damaged by the earthquake of 1542 and almost destroyed by that of 1693, its buildings and layout were substantially transformed.
In 1865 an administrative unit with the name of Ragusa Ibla was formed, comprising the oldest part of the town, while the new part, called Ragusa Superiore, developed more and more. The Ragusa of our own day consist of two quite separate urban centres. On the eastern spur rises Ibla, the layout and the buildings of which obviously spring from a medieval matrix. To the west spreads Ragusa, which is modern in appearance and has wide street laid out in a regular grid pattern.
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