Where Inspector Montalbano Was Filmed, Town by Town

Nowhere on a Sicilian map is called Vigàta, Montelusa or Marinella. They are Andrea Camilleri’s invented towns, and the Rai series filmed them in real ones in the province of Ragusa, in the far southeast of the island. Four places carry most of the series: Punta Secca, Scicli, Ragusa Ibla and the castle at Donnafugata. The rest is spread across the region, and a few scenes were shot as far away as the Trapani coast.

One caution before the list: the details below come from a fan site’s location list, the tour listings and Italian press, read in October 2026, and opening hours and access rules change.

Punta Secca: the house, the lighthouse and the trattoria

Punta Secca is a hamlet of Santa Croce Camerina on the coast. On screen it is Marinella, where Montalbano lives in a house on the seafront. The house is at Corso Aldo Moro 44 and is now a bed and breakfast. The lighthouse stands a few blocks away on Lungomare Amerigo Vespucci, on the same waterfront as Enzo a Mare, the trattoria used as Montalbano’s favourite restaurant (Lungomare Amerigo Vespucci 2). The Punta Secca guide covers how much of this you can enter.

Scicli: the police station and a baroque street

Scicli’s town hall, on Via Francesco Mormino Penna, plays the Vigàta police station, and its set rooms are open to visitors. The same street has the Antica Farmacia Cartia, now a museum, Palazzo Spadaro, whose interiors stood in for the Mayor of Vigàta’s room, and a short walk away the Church of San Bartolomeo, cut into the rock. At Sampieri, on the coast beside Scicli, the ruined Fornace Penna kiln plays “la mànnara”, the hideout in several stories. The Scicli guide covers the police station visit.

Ragusa Ibla: cathedral, garden and club

Ragusa Ibla, the old lower town, supplies the cathedral square. The Duomo di San Giorgio appears in many episodes, the Giardino Ibleo garden in a couple, and the Circolo di Conversazione, a gentlemen’s club, in a few more. The staircase of Santa Maria delle Scale, in upper Ragusa, turns up in several. Ibla is where the day tours walk the old streets.

Donnafugata, Modica and Noto

The Castello di Donnafugata, in the countryside outside Ragusa, appears in “A Trip to Tindari” and “Montalbano’s Croquettes”. It is closed on Mondays. Modica supplies two churches, the front of Palazzo Polara and the Ponte Guerrieri, the road bridge seen in the opening credits. Noto’s cathedral and palazzi appear in several episodes. Those two are worth a day of their own rather than a stop on a Montalbano tour, and none of the tours here lists them.

Further afield

A few episodes were shot well outside the region: the Temple of Juno in Agrigento’s Valley of the Temples, the Stair of the Turks at Realmonte, and a run of locations on the Trapani coast and islands, including Scopello’s tuna works and Favignana. No tour on this site goes there.

Which tour reaches which town

• Punta Secca: all three day tours.
• Scicli: Lemontour’s tour from Catania and Empeeria’s private trip from Syracuse name it. Sicily Grand Tour’s highlights mention the police-headquarters site, but its itinerary does not list Scicli, so ask before booking.
• Ragusa Ibla: all three.
• Donnafugata: only the private trip from Syracuse.

Compare the day tours side by side, or read which start town works best.