Long before the Baroque churches, there were the Greeks. In the seventh century BC, settlers from Syracuse founded a hilltop outpost here called Akrai, controlling the routes into the interior of Sicily. The remains of their town lie on the hill above modern Palazzolo Acreide: a small, beautifully preserved Greek theatre with views over the hills, stone quarries turned into burial chambers, and the Santoni, a series of rock-cut figures of the goddess Cybele, carved into a cliff face, weathered but still powerful.
The modern town below was devastated by the earthquake of 1693 and rebuilt in the exuberant late Baroque style, with grand churches, ornate balconies and elegant palaces. It is one of the eight Late Baroque Towns of the Val di Noto listed by UNESCO in 2002. The churches of San Sebastiano and San Paolo face each other in friendly rivalry, and each has its own festival; the feast of Saint Paul in late June is celebrated with fireworks, processions and crowds. The town also has a delightful house museum created by the ethnographer Antonino Uccello, displaying everyday objects of Sicilian rural life, from puppets to kitchen tools.
Palazzolo lies in the Monti Iblei, the limestone hills of south-east Sicily, a landscape of dry-stone walls, olive groves, carob trees and deep gorges. Nearby, the necropolis of Pantalica, with thousands of tombs cut into the cliffs of a gorge, is another World Heritage site, together with Syracuse, and worth a visit.
The riding here is excellent. Roads wind through the hills between towns like Noto, Modica, Ragusa and Palazzolo, with plenty of bends, climbs and views, and little traffic away from the main routes. Surfaces can be rough, with potholes and gravel common on minor roads, and local driving demands attention. Spring is the best time, when the hills are green and full of wildflowers, while summer is hot and dry.
Palazzolo Acreide has over eight thousand inhabitants, with fuel, shops and restaurants. Try the local sausages, seasoned with fennel and wild herbs, or a plate of ricotta, fresh from the sheep's milk farms of the Iblei, and finish with a cannolo or a granita in the main square.