Noto, after the tour buses leave

The buses leave Noto at five. You can set your watch by it: a shudder of diesel from the parking terraces below the Porta Reale, and then a silence so sudden it feels theatrical. The town exhales. Shutters that were closed against the heat crack open. Somewhere a radio starts. This is the moment Noto stops being a backdrop and goes back to being a town.

We stayed four nights, which locals seemed to find eccentric and we came to understand as the minimum. Noto in daylight is a stage set — honey-coloured stone, cathedral steps built for opera. Noto at seven in the evening is a working place where the barber argues football across the corso and the pasticceria sells what is left at a conspiratorial discount.

A town visited between ten and five is a museum. The same town at seven is a life you have been briefly lent.

Where the light goes

The famous facades face west, which means the day-trippers, arriving at ten, see them flat and pale. The stone does not perform until late afternoon, when the sun drops low enough to rake across the carvings and every balcony throws a shadow like a signature. Photographers know this. Sicilians have always known it. The tour schedules have not caught up, and one hopes they never do.

Climb the campanile of San Carlo at six — three euros, seventy-nine steps, no queue — and watch the grid of the town turn amber a street at a time. Bring nothing but patience.

Eat late, eat local

• Caffè Sicilia is world-famous and worth it — but go at 19:30, not 11:00.
• The granita rule: almond in the morning, lemon after dinner. Do not negotiate.
• Trattorias fill with locals after nine. If you hear only Italian, sit down.

The lesson Noto teaches is the one this journal keeps re-learning: the difference between seeing a place and being in one is usually about three hours, and they are the three hours everyone else spends on the motorway back to Catania.