Trapani: salt pans, windmills and the climb to Erice

Among pink pools and restored windmills, the Trapani Salt Reserves preserve a centuries-old salt extraction system along the coast.

Returning toward the center you walk along Via Garibaldi, the main axis of the Baroque historic center, among noble palaces and churches.

With the funicular you climb to Erice, a medieval village at seven hundred fifty meters height, where the Castello di Venere stands on the remains of an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess of love.

Among the alleys of Erice, cloistered pastry shops still prepare Genoese sweets according to recipes once guarded by the nuns of the local convent.

The temple of Venus Ericina, of which few traces remain today beneath the Norman castle, was already famous in the ancient world as a sanctuary dedicated to love and fertility.

The Egadi Islands remain visible from Erice on the clearest days: a reminder of how short, in reality, the distance is between the Sicilian coast and the archipelagos offshore.