Arrive at Catania Airport and transfer to Aidone and our local hotel. There will be a brief introduction to our week as we enjoy aperitifs before our welcome dinner.

We will spend all day with Malcolm (Mac) Bell III, Professor Emeritus of Greek Art and Archaeology in the Department of Art History at the University of Virginia. We will explore one of the most interesting archaeological sites in Sicily, the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Morgantina. Mac Bell has directed excavations to reveal the remnants of a once-important market town; the site now retains a certain isolated beauty, surrounded by hills with sheer cliffs.

We will also spend time in Aidone, where we will see the 11th-century Parish Church of San Lorenzo, built by the Normans and greatly damaged in the 1693 earthquake, and the10th-century Castello di Pietratagliata.

This morning we will visit Piazza Armerina, famous for its magnificent Baroque cathedral but above all for the Villa Romana del Casale. Here excavations have revealed superb mosaics in the foundations of the villa dating from the 3rd or 4th century. The mosaics depict a variety of subjects, including the Labors of Hercules, the Fall of the Giants, Child Grape Harvesters, hunting scenes, and women in a gymnasium.

After lunch, we will pause in Caltagirone, famous for majolica pottery, both ancient and contemporary, and continue with a walk along a stream below Ragusa Ibla. Following paths through orange groves, we will ascend the side of the gorge to the plateau and walk in the countryside amongst wild flowers, farms, dry stone walls and cattle. In the Baroque town of Ragusa, we walk up and down the narrow lanes and stairways of the ancient Ibla, with views over churches, domes, bell towers, and gorges.

We continue to our beautiful hotel, a former ecclesiastical estate set in some of the loveliest countryside in Sicily.

We will spend today in and around Modica. Following the ancient stairways towards the castle, we enjoy a visit in this splendid Baroque town built on the slopes and valley of a canyon. Through winding streets we will wander among stone houses and ancient churches left by the successive Arab, Norman, and Spanish conquerors of the region. At dusk the town takes a magical golden color, an effect created by the yellow ochre stone of the ancient buildings.

We will visit the Cava d’Ispica with its renowned Larderia consisting of a paleo-Christian catacombs (4C-5C) lined with burial chambers, following the contours of a rock wall. Beyond the Church of Santa Maria and the Camposanto or Holy ground is located the Grotte Cadute, a residential complex on several levels. Holes in the ceiling and steps cut in the walls below enabled the residents to move from one level to another with the aid of poles and ropes that could be pulled up in times of danger.

We will walk along well-trodden medieval paths through the Hyblean Highlands, a limestone landscape sectioned by dry stonewalls and dotted with carob and almond trees, with a panoramic view all the way to the sea. We will explore the Baroque town of Noto high over citrus plantations. We will follow the Corso Vittorio Emanuele, with its piazzas and churches to via Nicolaci, admiring the wonderful balconies of Palazzo Nicolaci di Villadorata.

After lunch, we will walk in the wilderness area of the protected Isla Vendicari, a complex of coastal marshlands, home to large populations of migratory birds. We will follow paths through the salt fields to a medieval watchtower, beside a ruined tuna fishery, with views of the whole reserve.

We will continue to Siracusa and our hotel situated in the historic centre on the island of Ortygia, separated from the mainland by a bridge.

We will spend today in and around Siracusa, colonized in 734 BC by the Corinthians and converted to Christianity by St. Paul himself, who preached in the quarries.

To walk here is a journey through history among Greek temples, Baroque buildings and courtyards, and Arab workshops and squares. We will explore the Neapolis Archaeological Park with the Greek and Roman Theatre, the Latomie del Paradiso, once an ancient limestone quarry, now a delightful garden shaded with orange, palm, and magnolia trees, and the Orecchio di Dionisio.

After breakfast we will return to Catania Airport.