Robert V. Camuto

Special to the Washington Post

It is hard for me to be objective about Sicily. In the past couple of years, I've fallen under its spell as I've crisscrossed the island: from the chaotic markets of Palermo to the stillness of the cooled lava flows on Mount Etna to the vast, rugged interior that turns from deep green in spring to a barren brown under a searing summer sun.

Sicily has become my second home: I love the contradictions of this historic place that cherishes its medieval traditions and refuses to follow simple modern rules; the natural bounty of the land; the resilience of the people; the pace of life; a cuisine with one of the widest varieties of local ingredients anywhere; and the monuments, churches and palaces, so often decorated to operatic excess.

The Noto Valley in southeastern Sicily was the destination of a family vacation last year, chosen because it was sure to please our three principal travel objectives. For my wife -- once a fine-arts major -- there would be plenty of eye candy in a group of towns that were recognized in 2002 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, representing "the final flowering of baroque art in Europe." For me, the epicurean, there would be languorous multi-course meals with exotic Sicilian food combinations, such as oranges and olives or chocolate with hot pepper. And to please our 14-year-old son in the mirrored Ray-Bans, we would "chill" in this friendly, laid-back part of the world that's nearer to Tunis than it is to Rome.

Within hours of driving from Catania to our base in Ragusa, we achieved all three of those objectives. Our first stop was the popular beach resort of Marina di Ragusa, about a 30-minute drive from the main town, where we sat at an outdoor table by the turquoise Mediterranean Sea. Our lunch at Da Serafino began with servings of raw marinated fish and seafood (crudo), including tuna sprinkled with pistachios and prawns marinated with oranges and onions. My wife and I drank glasses of dense white wine made from western Sicily's indigenous Grillo grapes. After the meal, the three of us adjourned to lounge chairs on the sandy beach and completed the "chill" portion of the program by drifting off for a nap.

Beauty and tragedy

Then it was on to the daily aesthetic-cultural fix I'd promised my wife. It wasn't hard to find. Ragusa is one of eight places recognized by UNESCO where the devastation wrought by a major earthquake in 1693 resulted in a massive public rebuilding program and the construction of fanciful late baroque palazzos, cathedrals, churches and other buildings. (The others are Caltagirone, Catania, Militello, Modica, Noto, Palazzolo and Scicli.)

Ragusa is divided into two parts. There is the modern part, which is further subdivided between the truly modern town, with shopping malls and an ugly and imposing asphalt operation, and a more graceful older quarter built in the 18th and 19th centuries. And there is the most historic part, Ragusa Ibla, the medieval town rebuilt in an eruption of baroque on the old footprint of coiling streets.

Our hotel was a former palace dating from the 18th century in Ragusa's older quarter. To get to Ragusa Ibla, we had to walk down the Via Scale, a collection of winding stone stairways that takes about 20 minutes to traverse on foot (there's a public shuttle bus between the two sections of the city, but that seemed like cheating) and offers dramatic views over Ragusa Ibla and its church towers. When we arrived in the old town, swarms of swallows were circling above the narrow streets. Many nest under the baroque balconies supported by fantastic carved-stone figures and fronted with ornate, potbellied iron balustrades.

At the center of Ragusa Ibla is the Duomo di San Giorgio, or Cathedral of St. George, which boasts both a dome and a towering ornate facade carved -- as are the other baroque monuments in the region -- out of local honey-colored limestone with the decorative pomp of an Italian wedding cake. Ragusa Ibla alone has eight churches and six other buildings on the World Heritage list. The soft, weathered stone gives a slightly melted look to these confections, and the bright white interiors elevate the pastrylike design with stucco putti and other adornment that looks as though it has been sculpted from cannoli filling.

We walked through the center of town, down the pedestrian Corso XXV Aprile and into the palm-lined public gardens that perch at the end of a promontory with views over the canyons and the flat-topped Iblei (or Hyblaean) Mountains. Had the day ended there, it would have been complete.

But there was dinner, and we'd reserved a table at Duomo, 40-year-old chef Ciccio Sultano's world stage in Ragusa Ibla and the only restaurant in Sicily with two Michelin stars. In these early years of the 21st century, Sicilian cuisine, wine and tourism have developed new sophistication, and Sultano, who worked in northern Europe and New York before returning to Sicily, is smack in the middle of the movement.

I was prepared not only to like this small restaurant, with its vaulted dining rooms, but to love it. The place was half-filled, mostly with visiting mainland Italians, who didn't look flustered by prices that seemed set for pre-crash Wall Street: tasting menus at $130 or more, pastas starting at nearly $40 and main courses from around $44.

The pasta of the day -- spaghetti with sea urchin and wild asparagus -- got things off to a good start. But from there, things went downhill: My wife ordered Sultano's take on a Sicilian classic, pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines), made with thick homemade noodles, wild fennel and saffron; it turned out to be heavy and on the bland side. My main course of scabbard fish rolled with breadcrumb stuffing, saffron and fennel and served with lemon and almond sauces was clumsy and uninspiring. Sicilian cuisine is among my favorites both in Italy and in the world. So my high expectations were doubly dashed.

As we walked back to our hotel after dinner, climbing all those stairs as I panted like the out-of-shape Rocky Balboa, I wondered aloud: What do Michelin stars mean in this soulful part of Italy?

"Who cares about Michelin?" my son replied, with the confidence of a teenager who has lived most of his life in Europe and eaten in restaurants from Paris to the Piedmont to Palermo. "Michelin makes tires!"

Waiting for George

The next morning, a Sunday, started slowly. We let our son sleep until after 10. Then we worked our way to the car and took the winding two-lane road to Modica, about a 25-minute drive to the southeast. In early spring, this hilly interior of Sicily, though clearly Mediterranean, can be as green as the Scottish highlands. We drove past fields of flowing wheat; olive, almond and citrus groves; acres of prickly pear cactus; stands of carob and eucalyptus trees; and small herds of grazing cattle and sheep, the farm plots marked off by endless miles of dry stone walls and the roadsides bursting with the colors of poppies, wild marigolds and ferula.

Modica is a bustling town divided between the base and the top of a mountain. Lower Modica starts at a main road of shops and cafes -- the Corso Umberto I -- and climbs up a series of narrow medieval streets that lead to the remnants of an ancient castle. As in Ragusa Ibla, Modica's most regal church, also called Duomo di San Giorgio, is a wedding cake among wedding cakes, sitting atop a grand double staircase.

San Giorgio, or Saint George, is also Modica's patron saint. By chance, we had come to town on his feast day. What that means in Sicily is an elaborate religious procession that lasts at least five hours, including the parading of a statue and relics, local color, music and usually a few surprising customs. San Giorgio's procession was set to start with a spectacle on the church steps at 5 p.m.

To pass much of the afternoon, we had planned on a long lunch at a family-style restaurant, Osteria dei Sapori Perduti. This osteria of "lost flavors" was everything that Duomo was not: Lively and unpretentious, it spilled out of the interior to tables on the sidewalk and under a tent in the street, where an accordion player serenaded Sunday patrons. Generous portions of antipasti and pastas rolled out of the kitchen, followed by main courses of stewed and grilled meats along with sides of one of my favorite Sicilian dishes, orange salad (made with white onions, fennel, olives and olive oil). Because the menu is printed in Sicilian (a distinct language), there's a translation book, which comes with food photos and descriptions in French, German, English and even Italian.

At 5 p.m., we joined the flow of pedestrians back to the Duomo di San Giorgio and squeezed in among the thousands awaiting the procession with the anticipation you'd expect for a sporting event. Trailers set up on the church's lower plaza sold ice cream, beer, plastic toys and helium balloon representations of such iconic secular figures as Winnie the Pooh and Tweety.

At a quarter past the hour, the church bells rang out for what seemed like minutes to great applause from the crowd, and a pair of uniformed marching bands playing fanfares arrived from a side street. The bells continued to clang, and a collection of colorful banners representing different parishes of the province slowly came out of the church. Then, held up high for all to see, came a silver reliquary in the shape of a bust of Giorgio, a sight that triggered more shouts, applause and waves of picture-taking by hundreds of telefonini, or cellphones.

At 5:30, the star of the show took center stage in the church doorway: the resident life-size statue of St. George, in plumed helmet, mounted on a rearing white horse and in the act of dragon-slaying, carried atop a litter borne by about 30 young men. At the first sight of the saint, the plaza seemed to explode, first in cheers and then in the blast of pyrotechnic cannons that shot purple and white squares of confetti as high as the church bells. There were more explosions of red and blue and green -- a blizzard of confetti -- accompanied by the screams of whistle rockets and the machine-gun staccato of what seemed to be a thousand firecrackers.

As the statue of Giorgio raced down the church steps to the plaza below, the crowd chanted as though greeting a soccer hero: "Gio! Gio! Gio! Gio! Gio! Gio! Gio!"

If this were the only such festival in this part of Sicily, the feast of San Giorgio would be a folkloric curiosity. But the Sicilian calendar is packed most of the year with celebrations of Madonnas and saints, as well as festivals in honor of the local bounty. In Modica alone, there are festivals for chocolate (the town is famous for a delicious, ancient style of chocolate that Modica's artisans season with vanilla, pistachios or hot pepper or stuff into meat pastries called mpanatigghi), for cavatelli pasta and sausage, for ricotta, olive oil and more.

The biggest challenge in visiting southeastern Sicily is the natural desire to "see it all," which would be difficult even in a week. Aside from its baroque constructions, the area has archaeological sites and remnants of cave dwellings that date back thousands of years.

And for those who rely on GPS, know that in this part of Sicily, even more than others, such devices can lead you into unexpected places. On our third and last day in the area, we set out in the afternoon from the coast to go to Noto, the must-see town where baroque churches and palaces line up facade to facade, as on a film set. For the third time in this part of Sicily, my GPS led me to a dead end -- a road to nowhere that might have been planned but was never built -- where we found tall grasses and a flock of grazing sheep.

Of course, that's part of Sicily's charm: It's a place not wholly on the grid, where getting lost is part of the journey.

Camuto is a writer based in France. His next book, "Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey," will be published in September.