UNESCO

Sicily is one of the regions of Italy with the largest number of sites named UNESCO World Heritage. The seven “precious gems” that give it eternal beauty are:

the archaeological area of the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, which testifies to the greatness of a city that ranked among the most important in antiquity, with Doric temples in an exemplary state of conservation; Syracuse, the largest and most beautiful Greek city according to Cicero, and the Rocky Necropolis of Pantalica, a site of great naturalistic, archaeological and ethnoanthropological importance, characterised by the presence of tombs dating all the way back to the twelfth century BCE; the Villa Romana del Casale on Piazza Armerina, with its priceless mosaics that tell surprising stories of society at that time; Mount Etna, one of the most important active volcanoes on the planet, which guarantees history and mythology the spectacle of continuous eruptions and is home to incomparable ecosystems between the lava and the snow; the Baroque buildings of Val di Noto, a simply stunning example of architectural and artistic heritage that connects the palaces and churches of eight cities of the southeast; the Arab-Norman route from Palermo to Monreale and Cefalù that unfurls over nine stages and, shifting between civil and religious buildings, testifies to the intermingling and perfect stylistic encounter between Islamic, Western and Byzantine civilizations; finally, the Aeolian Islands are truly unique in terms of volcanology and world geology, and form a rich archipelago that revels in its complexity.