We’ll start our tour in the northwest part of Sicily from Trapani.
Trapani offers tourists many opportunities to know the landscape, traditions and history of western Sicily.
In the center of the city many baroque buildings can be found in Corso Vittorio Emanuele (the College church, the Cathedral) along with the sanctuary of the Annunciation, with eighteenth-century Gothic façade and interior.
The National Museum Pepoli, with collections of sculptures, paintings, archeological remains, preserves precious works, such as “St. Francis receiving the stigmata”, painted around 1525 by Tiziano.
On the top of Mount San Giuliano (751 m), Erice is an intact medieval village, probably founded by the Elimi in the ninth century BC. From there you can admire breathtaking views of the entire Trapani, salt marshes, and during sunny day, the Egadi Islands, the agricultural landscapes of the hinterland, the northwest coast between Bonagia and the promontory of Capo San Vito.
The most representative building is still the Mother church, dedicated to the Assumption, dating back to the fourteen century. The three-nave interior was completely restored in the nineteenth century in neo-Gothic style.
Among the works of art preserved stands a marble Madonna of the fifteenth century. Opposite corner of the city is the Castle of Venus Ericina.
One of the best place to find a resort in Sicily is Castellammare del Golgo. The late medieval castle which gives its name to the town virtually closes the port.
The roman Theatre tells us about the magnificence of the ancient Roman Empire, and its remains are still visible. The structure, well-preserved, probably dates from the mid-fourth century BC.
Very charming is the great temple, outside the city perimeter: erected in 430-420 BC, is shaped like a Doric peristyle, with six columns on the front sides and fourteen on the long sides.
Salemi is a town on the right side of the river Delia; here May 14, 1860 Garibaldi issued a proclamation in which assumed the dictatorship of Sicily in the name of Vittorio Emanuele II.
The beautiful Norman castle dominates the town; inside the cathedral you can admire a baptismal font by Domenico Gagini and a fine seventeenth-century processional cross.
The vineyards announce Marsala, city of the homonymous wine and the main city for wine industry. The center, founded by the Carthaginians in 397 BC as “the Lilibeo”, had an important role in the Middle Ages during the Arab domination, when it was known as “Marsa Ali” (Ali Port). It has many reasons of interest, apart from the memory of “the Thousand” (in Marsala, in fact, the red shirts of Garibaldi landed on 11 May 1860).
The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, was built in the seventeenth and eighteenth century. Also worth seeing are the National Museum Lilibeo, housed in the Baglio Anselmi, an old wine factory, which houses a beautiful statue of a man found at Mozia in greek marble and dating from 480-470 BC. Interesting is also the winery Florio-Ingham-Whitaker: You may request permission to visit the precious wine cellar, which houses thousands of bottles of the finest quality Marsala, sometimes dating back to pioneer days of production. Not far from the city on the island of “San Pantalo nello Stagnone”, it is possible to see the remains of Mozia, punic city dating from the eight century BC, destroyed by Syracuse in 397 BC.
Still visible long stretches of the town walls and two monumental gates: inside the city you can see the Tophet, a necropolis, the remains of the shrine known as “del Cappiddazzu”, The House of Mosaics (Hellenistic age).
Image by JJKDC
