Erice & the Egadi Islands
The mountaintop medieval town of Erice wreathed in cloud, and the three Egadi Islands, Favignana, Levanzo and Marettimo, with their tuna palaces, prehistoric cave paintings and crystalline coves.
Part of Trapani
13 moments in this segment.
- - The Grotta del Genovese. On Levanzo, a cave of Paleolithic and Neolithic art, engraved deer and bison and painted dancing figures, some 10,000 years old.
- - The Castle of Venus. The Norman castle of Erice built over the ruins of the ancient temple of Venus Erycina, on a sheer crag with views to the Egadi and, on clear days, to Africa.
- - Medieval Erice. The walled stone town 750 metres above Trapani, often wrapped in cloud, cobbled lanes, sixty churches and the Venus Castle on the cliff edge.
- - Favignana. The butterfly-shaped largest Egadi island, tuff quarries turned into sunken gardens, the Cala Rossa coves, and the looming Florio tonnara.
- - Marsala. The province's wine city, founded on the ruins of Phoenician Lilybaeum, and the beach where Garibaldi and his Thousand landed in 1860 to begin the unification of Italy.
- - Marettimo. The wildest and farthest Egadi island, a single white village, no cars, sheer cliffs and sea caves, ringed by some of the clearest water in the Mediterranean.
- - The Zingaro Reserve. Sicily's first nature reserve, a roadless stretch of coast between Scopello and San Vito lo Capo, dwarf palms, hidden coves and clear turquoise water.
- - San Vito lo Capo. The white-sand bay under the great limestone cape of Monte Monaco, the province's most famous beach and home of the Cous Cous Fest.
- - The Erice cable car. The funivia opened in 2005 that lifts visitors from Trapani up the mountain to Erice in ten swaying minutes, with the salt pans laid out below.
- - Erice in the clouds. An aerial flight over medieval Erice on its mountaintop, the town drifting in and out of cloud above the coast.
- - Rick Steves in Trapani and Erice. An excerpt from the American public television series, visiting the working city of Trapani and the preserved hill town of Erice before sitting down to a Sicilian banquet. A rare outside broadcast look at the province.
- - Across the Egadi and the salt pans. A film crossing western Sicily from the salines to Erice, Levanzo and Favignana. It accompanies a written piece by the same makers on the cost of supplying the Egadi Islands with fresh water.
- - Trapani and the quiet of Levanzo. A forty minute journey from Trapani out to Levanzo, the smallest of the Egadi Islands. The film is interested in the pace of places that sit off the usual Sicilian route.
