A Jesuit priest planned the new Avola
Avola (gro) The name of the baroque town, 27 kilometers south of Syracuse, is familiar to all friends of a strong Sicilian red wine by name: The grape variety for the “Nero d’Avola”, the “Black of Avola”, is named after the baroque town, which was rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in 1693 in the last years of the 17th century. It was rebuilt in the last years of the 17th century according to the plans of Angelo Italia, a Jesuit priest who was also an architect and town planner. The religious arranged the core of the town, today’s old town, which lies near the coast a few 100 meters inland as a regular hexagon. Avola, by the way, was the last town in Italy where – still at the beginning of the 50-ies of the last century – striking farm workers were shot at sharply
Unvarnished Sicily.
Although Avola is part of the “Val di Noto”, the World Heritage Site of Sicilian Baroque, and although the town has ten churches, some of them magnificent, it has hardly been touched by tourism to this day. Quite in contrast to the “baroque capital” of Noto, 10 kilometers further inland, which is regularly inundated by photographing curiosity seekers from all over the world. While Noto shines with lush sights and styled coffee terraces, Avola, whose inhabitants are mainly engaged in agriculture, is rather reserved and also somewhat sedate: An ideal place for all those who also want to get to know the unadorned Sicily, with simple pubs and rural cuisine.
Hiking and swimming in the Monti Iblei.
Avola, a center of almond cultivation, lies on the Syracuse-Gela highway (A18/E45) and on the railroad line that connects northward with Syracuse and Catania and with Noto, Portopalo and Modica farther west. A few kilometers to the northwest, in the hinterland of Avola, lies the long Riserva Naturale di Cava Grande del Cassibile, the Grand Canon of Sicily, with natural freshwater pools at the foot of the gorge carved by the Cassibile River over the millennia in the eastern foothills of the Monti Iblei. You can swim and hike there, but camping is not allowed in the nature reserve nor is bringing dogs.