Fishing boats, a port and coloured houses

After spending a night, sleeping before the temple of Segesta last summer, we headed to the seaside village of Castellammare del Golfo, about 20 kilometres from Segesta and an hour or so west of Palermo.

Castellammare, a fishing port filled with colourful boats, houses nestled, restaurants, a historic centre with paved streets, sandy beaches and lovely public gardens, sits beneath hills on the Tyrrhenian Sea, with an old, sea facing Saracen castle.

It made a nice side trip on our way back to Polizzi Generosa.

Beaches, coves, a lido and seafood risotto 

Just east of the port and the historic centre, along the high coastline, pathways lead to small coves and sandy beaches. While a large lido, a little further east, was set for summer.

A delicious seafood risotto lunch by the port and a stroll through the mandatory, silent streets of a Sicilian town in the afternoon made for a few quiet hours.

A bit of history: emigration and the Mafia

To come across the town’s public gardens: treed, cool, monumental and beautifully kept, with a view to the port - to wander and to sit.

And, the oblesik like monument, perfectly aligned with the centre of the garden’s entry gates acknowledges emigrants who went to North America and fell during the Great War - a snap shot of Castellammare’s history in the town’s gardens.

And charming Castellammare, I found out when reading the Insight Guides Sicily, was a ‘Mafia haunt’ back in the 1950’s.

A very picturesque fishing town with a big history. 

Salve

Suzanne