glaze. But it was the
glaze. But it was the light that struck me, and would compel me to spend the next weekscribbling potential metaphors in my notebook: lemons, heat, magic. Ben and I threaded through the streets and soaked up the majestic sights: the Cattedrale di San Nicolò, perched above an enormous set of steps that serves as a prime hangout spot; the Civic Theatre, which looked like a child’s music box. Drifting farther from the centre, we found ourselves playing a game of Snakes and Ladders, sweeping up and down dead-end streets and sudden stairways. The town owes much of its splendour to a single catastrophe. The 1693 Sicily earthquake reduced Noto to rubble and inspired an enormous renovation, resulting in buildings with an unrestrained aesthetic that was all the rage back then. Adorned with squiggles and scrolls, sphinxes and gargoyles, the palazzos and churches are a perfect match for Fedez’s sleeve tattoos. That more-ismore spirit lives on in the latest wave of developments. Garcia purchased a former monastery in Noto five years ago and built around it three villas, each with a pool and furnished with antiques, religious curios and some seriously sexy art. Garcia’s friend, Jean-Louis Remilleux, a French TV producer, bought the massive Palazzo di Lorenzo del Castelluccio in 2011 and refurbished its 105 rooms in (mostly) historically appropriate style – think gilded thrones and frescoed ceilings. It’s now part museum, offering private tours, and part personal movie set, where Remilleux entertains when he’s in town. “I call it Baroque-shire!” said interior designer Samuele Mazza with an impish smile over dinner. The self-identified “mayor of Noto” runs a business flipping homes that he sells to a hungry clientele of French, English and northern Italians. We were at Anche Gli Angeli, a centrally located restaurant whose thick stone exterior conceals its status as one of Noto’s most bustling spots. Over local specialities (fried sardine “lollipops”, cubes of seared ruby-red tuna, followed by blanco mangare, a pillowy flan made with milk of the region’s insanely sweet almonds), Mazza expounded on the area’s renaissance. “It’s very bohemian and very snobbish – in an understated way,” he said with a shrug, offering me a tiny glass of Zibibbo, the glorious amber-tinged dessert wine, which I credit for my peaceful nights of sleep. The following morning, we drove half an hour up the coast, past sunbaked farmland and the occasional factory, to the ancient Greek settlement of Ortigia, the historical centre of Syracuse as well as the mythical birthplace of Artemis. Here, the streets were narrower, the buildings older, and the Baroque craze no more contained – the facade of the Cattedrale di Siracusa called to mind a lavish Broadway set. Across the square, a couple posed for their wedding pictures. The bride, a tattooed bombshell in the mould of Amy Winehouse, puffed on a cigarette while a girl wearing a chiffon dress twirled around in bored-happy circles. It was lunchtime, and Ben and I were still smiling over the scene when we arrived at Fratelli Burgio, an old-fashioned delicatessen abutting Ortigia Market. A slightly longer drive west from Noto, through a rugged, heart-stoppingly beautiful landscape of stone walls and knobby olive trees, will deliver you to Ragusa. After the 1693 quake, most of the city moved to a new settlement, where Baroque and Fascist-era buildings now coexist .Some 700 residents (and 70 chapels) remain in the old section, Ragusa Ibla. It was here that Ben and I spent our final nights in Sicily. With its quiet piazza at the foot of the › Interior designer Samuele Mazza, the unofficial “mayor of Noto”; below: Dimora Delle Balze, the estate where fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni and rapper Fedez were married CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM 51
From left: the restaurant Manna, in Noto, has a refreshingly modern vibe and seafood menu; the rolling streets of Noto; a suite at Seven Rooms Villadorata, set in an 18th-century palazzo sumptuous Cattedrale di San Giorgio and a public garden where young mothers nursed in the shade of palm trees, it has the feel of an eerily grand ghost town. Arturo Arezzo, the dapper owner of our bed-andbreakfast, Iblainsuite, and the descendant of one of the area’s noble families, grew up in a stately house overlooking the piazza, where his parents still live. With their imperial brass knobs at eye height, the home’s olive-green doors looked onto the square like an impassive face. Behind them sat a living monument to a lost time. Antique books and family trees rendered in fading calligraphy lined the walls. Arezzo told us that his ancestor Francesco Arezzo was one of 18 men who founded the social club Circolo di Conversazione in 1830, a place that, to this day, functions as a cultural meeting place for its current 235 members. Our host made a phone call, and soon enough another set of doors opened for us. Within the club, the grand ballroom, with its red silk walls and marble floors, made a fool of every Disney fantasy. Best of all, though, was the “women’s room” – a haven of marble and crystal and gleaming silver tea sets that puts The Wing to shame (women were allowed membership in 1974). On our final day, we headed south for an afternoon trip to Scicli, a beloved Baroque town closer to the Mediterranean. The scent of the sea hung in the air as we climbed a staircase to an abandoned church overlooking a spread of weather-beaten terracotta roofs, and then headed back down to the main drag and into a municipal building. In addition to the mayor’s office, it houses a fake police office that serves as the set for the television series based on my beloved Inspector Montalbano books. Our tour guide let me 52 CENTURION-MAGAZINE.COM CONTACT CENTURION SERVICE FOR BOOKINGS
