Modica Alta Experience

The houses of Modica Alta seem to grow directly from the rock, and for centuries people here have brought their chairs to the doorstep while the air filled with the scent of bread. This itinerary leads you on tiptoe into the Church of San Giovanni Evangelista — whose cross, at 449 meters, marks the highest point in the city — and takes you along Via Pizzo, a medieval quarter turned open-air gallery, where murals and illustrations tell the story of cocoa's journey from Mesoamerica to here. The route ends at the Belvedere del Pizzo, the terrace from which Modica reveals itself as a stone amphitheater, a UNESCO World Heritage site of the Val di Noto. And it is precisely here that the two itineraries intertwine: just steps from the Belvedere, the city you have crossed prepares to be tasted. The second route takes you inside the CIOMOD workshop, where cocoa is still cold-processed, under 45 degrees, with a method Modica has preserved for centuries.

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Available itineraries

Modica Alta Experience

The highest point of Modica is a cross at 449 meters, on the spire of San Giovanni Evangelista: it is from up there that the whole city can be measured. This route lets you tiptoe into the church, then takes you along Via Pizzo, a medieval quarter where the houses seem to be born from the rock and the walls have become an open-air gallery of murals and poems. It closes at the Belvedere del Pizzo, from which Modica reveals itself as an amphitheater of stone, a UNESCO heritage site.

Chocolate in Modica

In Modica, chocolate is still worked cold, below 45 degrees: this is why you feel the sugar crystals crunch beneath your teeth, a texture that has been lost almost everywhere else. This itinerary starts from the xocoatl of the Maya and arrives at the CIOMOD workshop, where for over twenty-five years the cabosse has become a bar following every phase of the Bean to Bar method. You will understand why every variety of cacao, just like wine, tells its own origin, and what lies behind a technique that has remained almost unchanged over the centuries. Listen carefully before tasting.

Modica Alta Experience - Demo

The highest point of Modica is a cross at 449 meters, on the spire of San Giovanni Evangelista: it is from up there that the whole city is measured. This route lets you enter the church on tiptoe, then accompanies you along Via Pizzo, a medieval quarter where the houses seem to be born from the rock and the walls have become an open-air gallery of murals and poems. It closes at the Belvedere del Pizzo, from which Modica reveals itself as an amphitheater of stone, a UNESCO heritage site.