Casalvecchio Siculo

Climbing halfway up Mount St. Elias, 400 m. s.l.m., Casalvecchio is about 20 km. from Giardini Naxos.
Founded by monks in the Byzantine period from Siraia and Egypt, has an impressive architectural heritage, as well as a forest of forests.

Among his buildings include the Cathedral Church of the seventeenth century. with artistic coffered ceiling and shelves and attached museum of sacred objects, The Church of St. Nicholas, rich in works of art and the Church of the Annunciation, both 1500, and the Church of S. Theodore, of the seventeenth century.

But what is certainly the "jewel" of the assets of the Temple of Casalvecchio SS.Pietro e Paolo d'Agro dating from about AD 560. Designed by the monks of St. Basil, Basilian hence the name, was destroyed and looted during the Arab domination and then rebuilt in the Norman period. These restorations are superimposed on an existing body building and provide an interesting summary of all the original elements of Byzantine, Arab and Norman. The Basilian Church rises unexpectedly like a lone sentry in a bay in Contrada Contura (follow the signs from the intersection of Santa Teresa di Riva on the SP for Antillo)