Palazzolo Acreide and Epipolae

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Palazzolo Acreide

   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.

   Read the complete Palazzolo Acreide write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Palazzolo Acreide is where the day begins. Next is Necropolis of Pantalica.

2. 2. Necropolis of Pantalica

   Thousands of small square doorways riddle the limestone cliffs above the Anapo and Calcinara valleys, like the windows of a vast abandoned apartment block. These are rock-cut tombs, some five thousand of them, carved by the people who lived at Pantalica between roughly the thirteenth and seventh centuries before Christ. Together with Syracuse, the necropolis is a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it is one of the most evocative places in Sicily, in a gorge of the Hyblaean Mountains west of Syracuse, between the towns of Sortino and Ferla.

   Read the complete Necropolis of Pantalica write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Necropolis of Pantalica comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Epipolae.

3. 3. Epipolae

   Above Syracuse the land rises in a long limestone terrace, a triangle of high ground pointing inland, and the ancient Greeks called it Epipolae, the place above the city. Whoever held it held Syracuse. During the great Athenian expedition against the city, between 415 and 413 BC, the fight for this plateau decided the war: the Athenians tried to wall Syracuse in from here, the Syracusans and their Spartan allies built counter-walls, and in the end the Athenian army was destroyed, with thousands of prisoners left to die in the stone quarries below. A few years later the tyrant Dionysius I enclosed the entire plateau with walls many kilometres long, and at its western tip he built the Castello Eurialo, one of the most complete Greek fortresses anywhere.

   Read the complete Epipolae write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Epipolae. Next is back through Necropolis of Pantalica.

4. 4. back through Necropolis of Pantalica

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Necropolis of Pantalica write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Necropolis of Pantalica, late in the day. Next is Palazzolo Acreide.

5. 5. Palazzolo Acreide

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Palazzolo Acreide write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Palazzolo Acreide. That is the ride.