Val di Noto

Val di Noto (English: Province of Noto) is a historical and geographical area encompassing the south-eastern third of Sicily; it is dominated by the limestone Iblean plateau. Historically, it was one of the three valli of Sicily.

The Val di Noto in the Arts

The Val di Noto owes its fame to the reconstruction which underwent after the year 1693, when the entire area was decimated by an enormous earthquake. Following the earthquake, many towns were rebuilt on entirely new sites, such as Noto and Grammichele. The rulers of the time, the kings of Spain, accounted the nobleman Giuseppe Lanza with special powers, which allowed him to redesign the damaged towns based on rational and scenographic town plans.

In fact, since the beginning of the Renaissance, architects had the dream to build an entirely new ideal city, where town planning follows rational design and streets and buildings are organized by functionality and beauty. However, only a very small part of their projects were really used, and most of them were limited to the reorganization of a street, like the Strada Nuova in Florence or the redesign of small villages, like the town of Pienza.

Noto

Noto (Sicilian: Notu; Latin: Netum) is a city and comune in the Province of Siracusa, Sicily, Italy. It is 32 kilometres (20 mi) southwest of the city of Siracusa at the foot of the Iblean Mountains and gives its name to the surrounding are,Val di Noto. In 2002 Noto and its church were declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

History

The older town, Noto Antica, lies 8 kilometres (5 mi) directly north on Mount Alveria. It was ancient Netum, a city of Sicel origin, left to Hiero II by the Romans by the treaty of 263 BCE and mentioned by Cicero as a foederala citilas (Verr. v. 51, 133), and by Pliny as Latinae conditionis (Hist. Nat. iii. 8. 14). According to legend, Daedalus stopped here after his flight over the Ionian Sea, as well as Hercules, after his seventh task.

In the Roman era, it opposed praetor Verres. In 866 it was conquered by the Arabs, who elevated to a capital city of one of three districts of the island (the Val di Noto). In 1091, it became the last Muslim stronghold in Sicily to fall to the Christians. Later it was a rich Norman city.

Noto (disambiguation)

Noto may refer to:

Noto (train)

The Noto (能登) is a seasonal overnight express train service in Japan operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East), which runs between Ueno Station in Tokyo and Kanazawa via the Shinetsu Main Line and Hokuriku Main Line. The journey takes approximately seven hours. The train was was operated as a regular daily service by West Japan Railway Company (JR West) until 13 March 2010, with operations transferred to JR East from this date.

Rolling stock

Trains are formed of 6-car 485 series electric multiple units (EMU) owned by JR East and based at Niigata depot. All seats are reserved.

Formation

The 6-car 485 series sets based at Niigata are formed as follows, with car 1 at the Ueno and Kanazawa end (trains reverse en route at Nagaoka).

Past rolling stock

From 1982 onward, services were formed of eight 14 series coaches, consisting of three B-type 3-level berth sleeping cars and five seating coaches. These services were hauled by a Tabata-based JNR Class EF62 electric locomotive between Ueno and Naoetsu, and by a Nagaoka-based JNR Class EF81 electric locomotive between Naoetsu and Kanazawa.