★ Town · Palermo, Cefalù and the MadonieCastelbuonoA Madonie town gathered around the castle of the Ventimiglia family, among chestnut and ash woods, half an hour from Cefalù.
The storyIn the countryside around Castelbuono and Pollina a very rare product survives: manna, the sweet sap that oozes from cuts in the bark of ash trees and hardens in the sun into white stalactites, once used as medicine and now in pastry-making. The town is also known for having collected recycling in the old centre with donkeys for years, and for an independent music festival known all over Europe, Ypsigrock.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Agrigento and the interiorSperlingaAn inland village at the foot of a sandstone spur, with a castle partly carved into the rock and dozens of caves used as homes.
The storyIn 1282, during the revolt of the Sicilian Vespers against the Angevins, the French who had taken refuge in the castle held out for months with the help of the townspeople: it was the only town in Sicily that did not side with the rebels. Above the castle gate the words «Quod Siculis placuit, sola Sperlinga negavit» are still carved: what pleased the Sicilians, Sperlinga alone refused. The caves dug into the rock below the castle were lived in until the mid-20th century.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ Town · Catania, Etna and TaorminaSavocaA medieval village perched on the hills above the Ionian coast, half an hour from Taormina, with churches, the ruins of a castle and quiet lanes.
The storyIn 1971 Francis Ford Coppola chose Savoca to film the Sicilian scenes of The Godfather: at Bar Vitelli Michael Corleone asks for Apollonia's hand, and their wedding is celebrated in the church of San Nicolò. The bar is still there, with photos from the shoot. The village also has a Capuchin crypt with the mummified bodies of 18th- and 19th-century notables.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Trapani, the Egadi Islands and SelinunteCampobello di MazaraA Greek stone quarry among olive trees and fields, with huge column drums left half-finished, still attached to the rock or abandoned along the road.
The storyThis is where the stone for the temples of Selinunte came from. In 409 BC the army of Carthage besieged and destroyed the city, and the quarrymen suddenly abandoned their work: that is why you can see columns at every stage of the process, from the circle cut into the rock to the drum ready for transport. It is as if the work site had stopped yesterday.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Trapani, the Egadi Islands and SelinunteMarsalaA small island in the Stagnone lagoon, opposite the Marsala salt pans, with the ruins of a Phoenician city and a museum.
The storyMotya was a thriving Phoenician colony until Dionysius of Syracuse destroyed it in 397 BC. In the early 20th century the island was bought by the Englishman Joseph Whitaker, of the family of Marsala wine producers, who had its ruins excavated. In 1979 the Motya Charioteer was found here, a Greek marble statue among the finest of antiquity. A submerged Phoenician road still links the island to the coast.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Trapani, the Egadi Islands and SelinunteGibellinaAn immense flow of white concrete on the side of a hill, cut by fissures you can walk through: it is one of the largest works of land art in the world.
The storyOld Gibellina was razed by the Belice earthquake on the night of 14-15 January 1968, and rebuilt elsewhere. The artist Alberto Burri decided not to leave the rubble to its fate: he had it compacted and covered in concrete, preserving the layout of the old streets in the fissures. Work began in 1984, stopped in 1989 and was completed only in 2015.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Syracuse and the Val di NotoSortinoA limestone canyon carved by the Anapo and Calcinara rivers, its walls pierced by thousands of rock-cut chamber tombs, in the heart of the Hyblaean mountains.
The storyBetween the 13th and 7th centuries BC, before the Greeks arrived, the Sicel people dug some five thousand tombs into the rock here, around a city of which the so-called Anaktoron, the prince's palace, remains. In the Middle Ages some caves became homes and small rock churches. Pantalica has been a UNESCO site together with Syracuse since 2005.
Full page, why go and what's nearby →★ History and art · Trapani, the Egadi Islands and SelinunteCustonaciAn entire rural hamlet built inside a gigantic cave on Monte Cofano, with houses, courtyards, an oven and a little paved street.
The storyThe cave was already inhabited in prehistory. In the 19th century the Mangiapane family built a small village of farmers and shepherds inside it, which was lived in until the mid-20th century. Today it is a museum of rural life, and at Christmas it becomes the setting of a living nativity in which local people return to the old trades.
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