Coast of western Sicily
An area to discover
Custonaci is known as the “marble town” and one of the main marble basins of Sicily. A few steps away it offers extraordinary natural landscapes such as the Monte Cofano Reserve and places of identity such as the Mangiapane Cave, where local customs and traditions come alive.
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Experience • Custonaci
A storytelling visit to the Mangiapane Cave and the rural landscape of Custonaci.
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Experience • Custonaci
An experience dedicated to the marble and stone of Custonaci, from reading the quarry landscape to meeting those who work it.
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Experience • Custonaci
Guided trekking in the Monte Cofano landscape among cliffs, Mediterranean scrub, coastal towers and ancient paths.
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Experience • Custonaci
A tuna trap of 1404 left almost entirely to nature: its four-pointed star-shaped defensive tower emerges from the Mediterranean scrub of the reserve, on one of the wildest stretches of coast on the itinerary. The new story widens the stop to the Mangiapane Cave, the Sanctuary and the Art and Faith Museum, following stone as a thread between devotion, rural life and coast.
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Place
In the Scurati area there is a small village overlooked by the rock walls of Monte Cofano, in which natural caves open, some of which were used by local shepherds and farmers.
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Place
As for the whole north-western coast between the Egadi and Palermo, the foot of the northern slope of Monte Erice is also characterised by numerous caves and shelters frequented as early as the Palaeolithic (the shelters of San Francesco, the Maltese and Polyphemus).
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Place
Adjoining the Sanctuary is the former “House of the Pilgrim and Franciscan convent”, with sixteenth-century architectural elements and, inside, a staircase of 1601.
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Inhabited by humans since the Upper Palaeolithic, it is one of the most important caves in the Trapani area. Located in the Scurati district, at an altitude of about 60 metres above sea level, about 70 metres high and 50 deep, it houses inside a small and delightful rural settlement, inhabited until the early…
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Place
The sanctuary, of late sixteenth-century origins, is the most representative monument of the town, a place of an ancient cult and a destination of pilgrimages.
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Place
The people of the Erice countryside have a strong bond with the Madonna of Custonaci, patron of numerous municipalities that split off from Erice.
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Place
Very tasty, the Sciavata is a pizza made exclusively with local products among which pecorino, olive oil and oregano dominate. A poor dish of very ancient origins, it also exists in a sweet version, sprinkled with sugar
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Place
Prepared for the Christmas festivities, it is a small sweet doughnut whose main ingredients are flour and potatoes.
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Place
Set in a natural context of extraordinary beauty, facing the Scialandro rock and near Punta della Croce, the former Cofano tuna trap already existed in 1404, when it belonged to the Bosco family; it was inhabited until the mid-twentieth century. A source of economic support for the local fishermen…
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Place
Obtained from vineyards between 200 and 650 m scattered across the so-called Erice countryside (the hilly area at the foot of Monte Erice), they owe their organoleptic qualities to the soil and climate characteristics of the area, a rare combination of altitude and proximity to the sea.
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Custonaci, Erice, Favignana, Marsala, Mazara del Vallo, Misiliscemi, Paceco, Pantelleria, Petrosino, San Vito Lo Capo, Trapani, Valderice
In 2020 UNESCO inscribed Maghreb couscous on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. But on this coast couscous has an older and more intimate story: it arrived with the sailors and workers who, between Mazara del Vallo and San Vito Lo Capo, traded for centuries with the Tunisian coasts…
Custonaci, Favignana, San Vito Lo Capo, Trapani, Valderice
Every spring, for centuries, tuna crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to enter the Mediterranean to spawn, and the Trapani coast awaited them with a system of nets, rituals and whole communities built around a single event: the mattanza. In Favignana this relationship reached its…