Page 9 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP PIAZZA IX APRILE, TAORMINA; NECROPOLIS, PANTALICA; PANAREA

CATACOMBS, CAVES AND HOLES IN THE GROUND

Sicily is home to some of the world’s creepiest tourist destinations, in the form of its

catacombs and caves, used as burial places for thousands of years and accessible to
anyone with a torch and a strong nerve. The oldest, the rock-cut tombs of the great
necropolis at Pantalica, were first used in the thirteenth century BC. Another huge
swathe of tombs is on view below the Greek temples at Agrigento, while catacombs

riddle the ground in the city of Siracusa. But for sheer hands-in-the-air horror,
there’s no beating the infamous preserved bodies that line the catacombs of
Palermo’s Convento dei Cappuccini, or the smaller-scale show in the little village