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
7 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.
- — Erice in the clouds. An aerial flight over medieval Erice on its mountaintop, the town drifting in and out of cloud above the coast.
