The Villa Romana del Tellaro Noto Antica Eloro The Sanctuaries Castelluccio Vendicari

From Noto you proceed to the Noto-Pachino street until the 10th kilometer, you turn on the left, next after the bridge then you arrive at the Wildlife Reserve of Vendicari since 1984.

It is a wonderful naturalistic oasis for migratory birds. You can see a lot of animals, like flamingos, herons, seagulls, storks, ravens, robins, turtle-doves, etc. In the reserve there live also foxes, hares, rabbits and dormouses. There are miniature palms, the sea fennel, the rosemary, brooms, oleanders, myrtles and mulberries. The rich faunistic and botanic life since eighteen years has been under studies from the universities of Catania and Messina.

Inside the reserve it is the Swedish Tower of Vendicari, build beetween the Fourteenth Century and the begin of the Fifteenth. It had a superior floor and is endowed with a fortress structure, with arcs.

Until the Nineteenth Century the tuna-fishing building was still in activity. It remains some concrete structures that are being restored. At about a hundred meters away from the Tower, it was found a roman plant for fish workmanship and the production of "garum", the typical sauce used by romans to enflavour dishes.

The wildlife reserve is a singulare spectacle. If you take again the street between Noto and Pachino, after about two kilometers, you arrive to the "Cittadella dei Maccari", a place south of Vendicari, used by Fenicies and Greeks as a trading area. This palce was enhanced in the Bizantine Age (VI century) as testified by the small basilicas now ruined; only one is almost undamaged, the "Basilica Trigona", a small temple with three apses and a dome cover. Next to this temple we also have five catacombs. In the same place, it has been found a rare exemple of a two-put grave with a barrel cover. Then, if you walk along the statal highway to Pachino, you arrive to a private rural block; from the outside you can see a wall belonging to a greek temple, probably dedicated to Apollo Libystino (IV sec. b.C.).

The Pitturata is another bizantine oratory, a circular structure which is on the way between Lido and Avola. It was found in the Eighteenth Century by the french painter Jean Houel, who left us a drawing.