TRAVELLING THROUGH THE RAGUSA PROVINCE

The province of Ragusa is one of the most visited in Sicily 

A corner of Sicily that has had its media prominence thanks to the successful fiction "Il Commissario Montalbano".

The Hyblaean Baroque is one of the major tourist attractions in the area: cities such as Ragusa, Modica and Scicli are now recognized as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. But the province of Ragusa is not only Baroque as visiting it means rediscovering the most genuine Sicily: infinite dry stone walls, bales of hay piled up in the fields and a marvelous coasts , where wild nature makes its way between beaches of fine sand and sea with its crystal clear waters. Besides, food and wine, Greek remains, and the quarries of the Sicilian canyons where you can venture into trekking routes.

And ... obviously the places of Montalbano: the terrace of Punta Secca, the Penna furnace on the Pisciotto cliff in Scicli, the Donnafugata Castle, a nineteenth-century noble residence located in the municipality of Ragusa.

 

COMISO AND ITS SURROUNDINGS: THE PAGODA OF PEACE

From the b & b Giardinello, looking towards the Hyblaean mountains , stands the Buddhist pagoda of the monk Morishita on the hill of Canicarao.
This is a story that is worth telling because it is linked to a precise period in Italian history that dates back to the early 1980s, when in the middle of the Cold War, NATO placed 112 medium-range nuclear missiles, the Cruise, in the area nowadays occupied by Comiso airport.
On April 4, 1982, almost one hundred thousand people , led by Pio La Torre, crossed an old provincial road and arrived where the missiles were about to take the place of what, in the past, had been a civil airport, with the sole purpose of saying ’no’ to the construction of that base.
In a short time, the wave of protest crosses the Strait of Messina to reach the most important Italian squares, also crossing national borders and bringing more and more pacifists from all over the world to our island.
Among them Gyosho Morishita, a Buddhist monk arrived in Comiso and decided, after the end of the Cold War and the dismantling of the base, to remain in Sicily and build, right in front of the airport, the eightieth "Peace Pagoda" in the world.
Today, years later, Morishita is still there to welcome visitors in the ritual prayer of dawn or afternoon, accompanied by the sound of the drum that recite the mantra "Namu myo ho ren ge kyo".

comiso e dintorni: fondazione bufalino

Established in 1999 by the will of the Municipality of Comiso and the writer's widow, Giovanna Leggio Bufalino, it is located in Comiso, in Piazza delle Erbe, in the monumental complex of the ancient Casmeneo Market (1867). A place loved by Bufalino himself whoused to spend a few hours a day walking and chatting with friends under the elegant loggia. Today it represents the ideal space to host an institution dedicated to the literary memory of a great writer.

The Foundation keeps the "Gesualdo Bufalino Fund", consisting of the writer's private library, a book heritage of about 10,000 volumes and the complete corpus of his works, a video library and a precious collection of records that testify Bufalino’s multiple cultural interests. The most significant part of the library is the literary section, with particular reference to Italian and foreign literature. Some of these books contain traces of reading by the writer: annotations, handwritten notes, underlining, notes. The "author's papers", include the various original typed drafts, with handwritten corrections. The Fund also preserves Bufalino’s wide correspondence. A final and significant section of the library concerns his critical success, both Italian and foreign, his interviews and journalistic collaborations.

 
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