Walking through the city of Modica you might feel like you are on the set of a costume movie: the Baroque art that decorates the downtown buildings embark the visitors on a journey back to the past.
The memory of the city doesn’t lie only in the facades of its prestigious buildings: inside them you can find must-see museums that will make your stay in Modica even more interesting.
The Chocolate Museum
The symbol of the city of Modica becomes the star of this museum, and its history gets proudly celebrated here: established in 2014 inside the “Palazzo della Cultura”, the Chocolate Museum offers a lot of information on the Modican chocolate.
The museum also contains an extraordinary 9-meter-long miniature representation of Italy made from chocolate.
You can also see master chef chocolatiers at work in the museum’s pastry lab, called “u dammusu ro ciucculattaru”.
The House of Salvatore Quasimodo
Near the Town Clock Tower, there is the house where Salvatore Quasimodo, writer, poet and Nobel Prize winner in 1959, was born on August 20, 1901. The poet lived there for his first 14 months.
One particular stop on the tour of the house is the Poetry Room: they will play an old tape that will allow you to hear Quasimodo’s voice reciting some of his works.
The Archeological Museum
In such an old town it is not surprising to find an archeological museum, established inside the “Palazzo della Cultura”, once a Benedictine Monastery and then the town’s Courthouse.
It is named after its founder, Franco Libero Belgiorno, and features paleontological remains coming from different sites of the area.
It also features the ruins of a Neolithic village discovered in Contrada Pirrone, and Bronze Age objects, coming from Cava Ispica and Cava Lazzaro.
The Heracles of Cafeo
Probably the most famous work in the museum, a bronze representing Heracles of Cafeo is a symbol of the town today. The statue, barely 22 cm tall, was found in 1967 along the Irminio River.
The statue can be dated to the end of the 5th century BC and it is fascinates tourists and the locals themselves, who see, in it, an evidence of their prestigious Hellenic past.
If during your stay at Edel you want to learn more about the museums in Modica, you can ask our staff members for information and advice, so that you will be able to experience the beauty hidden and enshrined in the historical buildings of Modica.
