Tag Archives: Offseason travel

“It’s close ed” Modica & Ragusa, Sicily – The Diary of a Slow Traveller

Modica from Belevedere

Modica from Belevedere

Traveling in off-season has both pluses and minuses. On the one hand, no crowds at any of the sites meaning almost never having to wait to get in and discounts on accommodation, while on the other, you are often faced with a sign saying “Chiusa” (closed in English).

Our visit to Modica and Ragusa gave us a great opportunity to experience both!

Train Station - Siracusa

Train Station – Siracusa

Modica our base for a couple of days is about an hour and half by train from Siracusa. Its a direct line and definitely the best way to get there if you can coincide your travel plans with the off season timetable.

Modica is one of the towns rebuilt after the earthquake of 1693 and consists of two towns – Modica Bassa (lower) and Modica Alta (upper) and a lot of steps between the two!

Taking the advice of our guidebook on Sicily and numerous informative blogs, we stayed in Modica Alta at the delightful Palazzo Failla Hotel which was offering a very good off- season deal. Its a delightful old hotel with a grand entrance staircase and large rooms with recently renovated bathrooms (almost unheard of in Sicily). Attached to the hotel is one of the region’s finest restaurants.

Modica is well known for its great food, not just its chocolate and baroque architecture. However, as we quickly found out most of the restaurants, including the hotel’s, that were on our hit list were, as the Sicilians say so delightfully in English “Is close ed”. The hotel also gave us a list of places to eat, however as we wandered the delightful streets, alleyways and stairs of Modica we were able to see that most were in fact “close ed”. Continue reading

Alone at Lake Como

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How can it be that a place like this actually shuts?

Even the trees were closed!

Even the trees are shut - Bellagio

A closed tree – Bellagio

The signs of how quiet it would be were evident when we got on the bus to our hotel. We were the only ones with suitcases.

The town we stayed in had only one restaurant open on the day we arrived, a Wednesday, and it wasn’t full for dinner!

Lake Como is truly idyllic and being able to have it largely to ourselves more than made up for the fact that pretty much everything was closed.

Our hotel

Our hotel

We took largely empty ferries between Tremzzo, Bellagio and Varenna. There were just 5 of us on the ferry to Bellagio, so it wasn’t surprising that the town was close to empty. It’s hard to imagine that only a couple of months ago it would have barely been possible to get a table at the lakeside restaurants or a room in Bellagio. During our visit they were pretty much all closed, a ghost town, just a chilling wind whipping down the narrow streets. We travelled onto Varenna, where there was a little more activity, including a delightful little bar, where we were able to shelter from the biting wind and have a pizza and a glass of red.

Bellagio

Bellagio

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We decided on a day trip to Como on our third day, Friday. Unless we wanted a dawn start, Continue reading