12 Old Ruins to Explore in Sicily

The Catacombe dei Cappuccini is a complex of tunnels and shrines in Palermo, Sicily that is decorated entirely with mummified corpses. Today they provide a somewhat macabre tourist attraction as well as an extraordinary historical record. The catacombs contain about 8000 corpses and 1252 mummies that line the walls. It will be a unique experience visiting this place.

The Donnafugata castle is located in the territory of the municipality of Ragusa, about 15 kilometers from the city. The current building, contrary to what the name might suggest, is a sumptuous noble residence of the late 19th century. The residence overlooked what were the possessions of the rich Arezzo De Speeches family. Upon arrival, the castle reveals its sumptuousness: the building covers an area of ​​over 7500 square meters on 3 floors in neo-Gothic style, crowned by two side towers tha

Teatro Massimo, in Palermo, is the largest opera house in Italy, one of the largest in Europe and third in terms of architectural magnitude after the Opéra National in Paris and the Staatsoper of Vienna. Representative rooms, halls, galleries, and monumental stairways surround the actual theater, forming an architectural complex of enormous proportions.

Morgantina is an ancient Sicilian and Greek city, an archaeological site in the territory of Aidone, an Italian town in the province of Enna in Sicily. The city was unearthed in the fall of 1955 by the archaeological mission of Princeton University. The excavations carried out so far allow us to follow the development of the settlement for a period of about a millennium, from prehistory to the Roman era.

Rock necropolis of Pantalica, are a naturalistic-archaeological site in the province of Syracuse. The name of the site seems to derive from the Arabic Buntarigah, which means 'caves', due to the obvious presence of multiple natural and artificial caves. It is one of the most important Sicilian proto-historic sites, useful for understanding the moment of transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age on the island.

The "Antonino Salinas" Regional Archaeological Museum is a museum based in Palermo. It has one of the richest collections of archaeological d ' Italy and testimonies of Sicilian history in all its stages, ranging from prehistory to the Middle Ages. Inside are preserved the finds and artifacts of the peoples who determined the history of the island: Phoenicians, Punic, Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines, but also artifacts from other peoples such as the Egyptians and the Etruscans.

The Amphitheatre of Catania is a Roman amphitheatre in Catania, Sicily, southern Italy, built in the Roman Imperial period, probably in the 2nd century AD, on the northern edge of the ancient city at the base of the Montevergine hill. Only a small section of the structure is now visible, below ground level, to the north of Piazza Stesicoro. This area is now the historic centre of the city, but was then on the outskirts of the ancient town and also occupied by the necropoleis of Catania.

The Roman amphitheater of Syracuse is one of the most representative buildings of the early Roman imperial age. It is located in the archaeological area, which includes the Greek Theater and the altar of Hieron II; its orientation differs from that of the buildings of Neapolis and the theater and probably follows that of the urban plan built in the late classical age and known from the road discovered in the area of ​​the demetriac sanctuary in Piazza Della Vittoria in Acadiana.

The Ancient Theater of Taormina is the second largest ancient theater in Sicily after the Greek Theater of Syracuse. It is excavated in the rock and the scene has the Ionian Sea and Mount Etna as a background . It has a maximum diameter of about 109 meters and a height of about 20 meters. The auditorium is divided into nine sectors with eight stairways that allow spectators access. Today the theater, in addition to being used as a tourist place, is mainly used for concerts amd so more.

The Temple of Apollo on the island of Ortygia in Siracusa is a Greek temple dating from the 6th century BC. This is the oldest known Doric temple in Western Europe. An inscription says that the temple honors Apollo, but after Cicero came to Syracuse, he wrote that the temple was dedicated to Artemis. is dated to the beginning of the 6th century B.C. and is, therefore, the most ancient Doric temple in Sicily.

The temple of Concordia is a Greek temple of the ancient city of Akragas located in the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. It is still not known who this temple was dedicated to, but the name of "Temple of Concord" is documented by one of the first Sicilian historians: Tommaso Fazello. This temple is of the peripteral type with a double cell in antis. Together with the Parthenon, it is considered the best-preserved Doric temple in the world.

The Valley of the Temples is an archaeological park in Sicily characterized by an exceptional state of conservation and a series of important Doric temples from the Hellenic period. It corresponds to the ancient Akragas, a monumental original nucleus of the city of Agrigento. Since 2000 it has been a regional archaeological park. It is considered a popular tourist destination, as well as being the symbol of the city and one of the main ones on the island.