The Baroque churches of Scicli and the set of Inspector Montalbano.

5 km away from the beautiful seaside resort of Punta Secca, Scicli is known for the set of the Inspector Montalbano series. In fact, visitors usually head straight to the Town Hall, where the Police Headquarters in the film was set up. The town deserves a deeper understanding, having beautiful Baroque churches and historic buildings, all rebuilt after the 1693 earthquake that razed the city to the ground. Climbing a staircase from the top of the town, you go to the Rocca di San Matteo, where the first inhabitants settled. Here the homonymous and baroque church appears in all its magnificence and you can also admire the belvedere of the urban agglomeration with the streets and numerous churches. Each one is particular for its architecture and location, such as the eighteenth-century Church of Santa Maria della Consolazione, which is located on a raised floor above the street level, appearing very high, or the Church of San Michele with the three orders of columns and the architecture sober, typical of the neoclassical style. In the tree-lined square of oleanders, always blooming during the summer, they come alive in the evenings, when tourists come to dinner or to drink a mug of local beer, from the seaside resorts. Among these the best known is Punta Secca and, if you want to reach it, you stop outside the town to admire the Church of San Bartolomeo, particularly in the structure set in the old quarries. During the Christmas period, an artistic nativity scene populated with ceramic figurines is set up in a cave near the quarries. Near the beach stands out among the other buildings the famous house and, above all the terrace, of the inspector and, why not, we too go to dinner at Enzo al mare, to taste the delicious fish dishes. Another destination of interest is the locality of Sampieri, where the cliff drops into the sea, immediately deep, clean and of a brilliant blue. Nearby you can recognize the old Penna furnace from the early 1900s, which was the Mannara of a crime in a famous episode of Montalbano.