Best known to tourists for the boisterous chaos of Palermo, the views of Mount Etna from idyllic Taormina, and for that capricious volcano itself, Sicily has far more to draw travelers. In Sicily’s southeast corner, one region encapsulates the Sicilian spirit that has seen it through conquest and natural disasters, a region less well-known to tourists but one of the island’s most beautiful and fascinating.

The Val di Noto includes eight towns inscribed by UNESCO World Heritage as “representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe.” Largely destroyed by a violent earthquake in 1693, these towns were rebuilt, each more Baroque than the last, by a group of visionary architects. Palaces of long-ago aristocrats line the streets, and churches are laden with the architectural flourishes that characterize Baroque’s exuberance.

Narrow streets and lanes seem perpetually up- or down-hill and filled with local life at full throttle (except in early afternoon, when everything pauses in mid-step). Modica is so steep, buildings seem stacked in layers, and one of the island’s most lavish Baroque churches, Duomo di San Giorgio, towers above the town.

Noto is so picture-perfect it might be a stage set, its churches and palaces designed by the same architect responsible for the streetscapes of Modica and Ragusa. Visit Noto in mid-May to see its streets covered entirely in designs of colored flower petals.

The 1693 earthquake so badly damaged Ragusa, a new town was built on an adjacent plateau. Fans of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano will recognize the settings for the TV series, especially at the castle of Donnafugata. For more contemporary streetscapes, look for Ragusa’s colorful street murals.

You’ll find more Montalbano settings in Scicli, the most beguiling of all these towns. Perhaps Sicily’s most beautiful street is Via Francesco Mormino Penna, lined with Baroque palaces and churches; behind the golden stone facade of Church of San Giovanni Evangelista discover a dazzling white marble interior.

For a break from Baroque, Sicily’s south coast beaches are never far away, and nearby Syracuse adds one of Sicily’s premier reminders of its ancient Greek civilization.