Under this mountain town there is a working salt mine, and inside it, sculptures carved from the salt itself.
Beneath the town, in the Raffo district, there is a working rock-salt mine. Inside it, a space has been cut for sculptures carved out of the salt crystal itself, the home of an international salt sculpture biennial.
Above ground, the Church of the Saviour has an elliptical plan and is held to be the former mosque converted by the Normans. The Ballo della Cordella, a harvest thanksgiving danced on the threshing floor, is still performed.
Palermo (PMO), leaving the A19 at Irosa or Tremonzelli, roughly two hours. The town itself gives Cefalu and Termini Imerese as the nearest stations, both on the coast: the train is not an option.
At 1,137 metres the Madonie winter is cold and snowy and the town empties. The salt mine is an active industrial site, not an attraction: access has to be arranged in advance. Without a car you cannot get here.
Sources: tuttitalia.it/sicilia/82-petralia-soprana/ ; comune.petraliasoprana.pa.it
Each town is a day. The order of the drives, the nights and the meals is the part that ruins most first trips to small Italy. Twelve of them in one guide, free, and a letter a week after that.
No spam, one letter a week, unsubscribe in one click.