itinerario 14

Located in the south-eastern part of Sicily, where the Iblei Mountains rise, between the municipalities of Rosolini (Syracuse) and Modica (Ragusa), the Cava dei Servi is an alternation of overhanging rocky walls and flat areas, to then pass with deep gorges, through which the water of the stream flows.

For some decades, the initial part of the quarry has become a Nature Reserve with nothing short of exceptional prehistoric contents

In fact, this area, not far from the Monte Lauro massif, has aroused interest since the Copper Age because, like the whole Iblean region, it guaranteed excellent commercial opportunities thanks to the extraction of flint. In the part above the overhangs, along one of the less tortuous courses of the Cava, a few meters higher than the only road that leads to the bottom of the gorge, you can admire a semicircular dolmen made up of rectangular slabs driven into the ground on which three more are arranged , incline just enough to reduce the coverage area and model a false dome.

In addition to being home to a necropolis with artificial caves dating back to the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC, the locality also houses a dolmen cemetery with funerary architectures that recall structures already present in a vast area of ​​the Mediterranean.

From a naturalistic point of view, it is possible to admire holm oak and oak woods, with stretches of garrigue.

The garrigue is a type of Mediterranean vegetation deriving from the degradation of the maquis made up of low shrubby plants, with gray tones, which form discontinuous bushes on rocky, detrital or sandy soil.

Shrub thyme predominates among the shrubs, an aromatic essence loved by the bees that produce the famous Thyme honey.