Southeast Sicily | Day Ride

The southern towns of Ibla, Modica and Noto are famous for their Baroque architecture. We’ve been thinking of spending a few days visiting the area long before reaching Sicily, but with much sporadic rain in the forecast for the first week of our stay in Catania, we weren’t sure we’d be able to pull it off.

In the end, the weather did improve just in time for a Saturday outing. Partial sun and little rain we could work with. It wouldn’t be a two or three day trip we hoped for, but even a day would be well worth it. Sunday forecast was all rain.

We mounted our bikes about 9 am and headed straight south. The all-local-roads option showed a full day of riding, about 6 hours worth, so we opted for the autostrada to cut to the chase. Over the past couple months we’ve discovered that our actual travel time is about 133% of Google’s estimate when accounting for the stops for gas, gear reconfigurations and forgotten earplugs. In other words, 6hrs Google time equals 8hrs Min and Igor time. All said, we spent about 4hrs in the saddle that day leaving the remaining four and a half for stops and exploration on foot.

We planned the ride so that it would loop through all three towns starting inland (west) and coming back along the shores of the Mediterranean (east). The short rides between the cities would form the southern portion of the loop and Catania, the beginning and the end.

It didn’t all go as planned, but I’ll get to that.

The autostrada portion of the trip was uneventful and already familiar. The road is wide and fast, the surface well maintained. We saw it on our way down to Siracusa a few days earlier. Heading inland, on the secondary roads, was the part we had yet to discover.

Once off the autostrada the road becomes quite varied climbing up and down rolling hills. The traffic is light, but you still get the usual suspects – heavy trucks slowing everyone down through the hairpins and impatient weekend racers tail gaiting everything in sight. As much as I’ve embraced the Italian style of riding, that last part is one of my few outstanding pet peeves. Following someone 3-5m behind doesn’t accomplish much but it can lead to dangerous situations. When we do get one of these guys on our tail we tend to just pull to the right and motion them ahead.

Google put us on SS514 on the way down south which proved to be both fun and enjoyable, but it probably isn’t the ultimate path down. At one point a group of sport bike riders passed us while we were stopping splitting off onto SS194. Following their road east and up into the hills with my eyes I could immediately see the appeal: more up and downs, more twisties. Tempting — that road does end up half way between Ibla and Modica — but I didn’t want to add to what already looked like a pretty long day in the saddle. I’d definitely pick the route on a follow up trip, however.

Ibla aka Ragusa

Ibla is both a part of and distinct from Ragusa, the adjacent regional capital. Like Modica, as we would later discover, the town sits in a deep canyon with the ancient stone homes scaling its north side. Riding down the canyon from Ragusa and back up the hill is magical until you hit the final, tight hairpin turns leading into town.

Here our luck run out.

Only two slow narrow curves away from the centro storico parking lot, I found myself adjusting my radius mid way through the apex as I came across two cars traveling in the opposite direction. The cars paused leaving me just enough room to complete the maneuver, but their presence surprised Min who followed. Having made it past the crowded turn I craned my neck to look back at the very moment when she slowed down almost to a stop in an attempt at a much tighter radius. Her bike was now on a steep incline with little room to maneuver and out of balance. A couple beats later the CFMOTO was down and a loud bang resonated through the hill. Her airbag had deployed.

We do play it safe and wear lots of protective clothing and padding, all of which did its job that day, but Min did bruise her right knee in the fall. After the initial shock and scramble to assess the damage we found that she was still mobile and able to ride, but would need to limit her walking for the rest of the day. Over the fifteen years that I’ve watched her ride she’s been invincible. With the agility of a cat, she’s always managed to be two steps ahead of the machine, even if the bike ended up on its side or in a ditch when off-roading. I’d break bones and dislocate shoulders, she’d always just walk away.

But the MT450 has definitely been a bit of a challenge. Min loves it on long highway stretches where the power and comfort far outshine the KTM390 she left behind in Santa Fe, but when more technical, slow motion maneuvering is required the bike is far from nimble in comparison. It’s taller, wider and heavier. I’ve seen her tackle some pretty tricky off-road sections on the 390 with complete ease and composure, but the KTM is half adv and half dirt bike whereas the MT is more of a small Tenere. If you’re not tall enough to have both feet flat on the ground and your knees slightly bent, a few degrees off-balance is enough to put you in a pretty precarious position. Once there, the high center of gravity will do the rest.

Min, a few minutes after the hairpin turn from hell

Our morale bruised, we took a much shorter, ibuprofen-aided walk through Ibla’s centro storico snapping a few photos along the way. The town is small and gorgeous both of which turn it into a museum as soon as there are more tourists than locals, a balance that’s very easily tipped.

Min put on a good face, but we soon looked for a restaurant where we could have lunch and take a deep breath. For once, the internet ratings in a tourist town turned out to be accurate. The top rated restaurant invisible from the main piazza yet only a couple blocks distant served the best spaghetti we’ve ever tasted. Partial compensation for our troubles accepted. We’ll be talking about that pasta for a while.

Modica

On the way from Ibla to Modica we bypassed Ragusa and headed straight down into the canyon. Here we picked up the SS194 that we skipped up north all but confirming my earlier riding instincts. That road is made for motorcycling. The views on the short, half hour hop between the two towns were nothing short of fantastic.

Unlike Ibla, which functions like a carved out, separated historic center of Ragusa, Modica does a great job integrating the day-to-day with the historic. In fact, it does it better than almost any other city we’ve seen on our journey thus far. Wide and generous main thoroughfares lead through the middle as the city scales both sides of the canyon above. As a town, Modica is small to medium in size, about 54k inhabitants in all, but punches well above its weight in sights. Baroque buildings and hidden alleys left and right, evidence of good urban planning everywhere. Clean, too.

With Min unable to take long walks we rode up and down admiring the town at 5km/h stopping for photos every 200m. Having refilled on cappuccino on the way in, we headed west toward Noto about 40 minutes later, but my to redo list gained another bullet point. We’ll be back one day, probably for a few days.

Noto

We reached Noto late in the afternoon as the day began winding down. I left it up to Min to decide whether she wanted to complete our planned loop. I didn’t think she would given her bruise, so I was surprised to see her growing smaller in my rear view mirror just before the Noto exit on the autostrada. We don’t use any in-helmet communication devices so we’ve been developing our own behavioral language to compensate. Min slowing down behind me is usually a clue that she wants to stop for some reason. I let off the throttle and looked back. She caught up and motioned toward the Noto exit sign with her head. Hard right we went.

Just like the other two baroque beauties, Noto did not disappoint. The town sits on a hill and is visible from the autostrada a few kilometers away. It’s half the size of Modica in population, but comes across as larger because no parts of it are hidden from view.

The historic part of town is large for its size and impressive in architectural ambition. It doesn’t out-do Ibla and Modica, it’s just another take on the baroque theme once so popular in the region. Late afternoon on the day of our outing we found it to be more crowded than its siblings. Not sure why. Perhaps because the tour buses have already visited the other towns that day. Or because its dedicated walking strip is longer and more saturated with shops and restaurants.

The quickest and shortest path between Catania and Noto is the autostrada. Had we had time for another outing, the southeast shoreline would have been another temping area to explore. As it was, the day was almost over. Tired, joints and egos bruised but awestruck nonetheless, we headed home.

BTW, to put everyone’s mind at ease, Min’s knee has been recovering well. Her calf did turn black and blue a few days after the mishap, but now almost two weeks later we joined a gym and she’s almost ready to hop back on the treadmill.