We’ll climb higher, and everything changes.
Erice is a medieval village perched 750 meters above sea level, and reaching it is already part of the experience: the coastline and the salt flats appear suddenly below you, and for a moment it’s hard to look at anything else.
Its narrow stone streets are almost silent, wrapped in mist more often than not, and walking through them feels like stepping into another century. Look closely in a hidden corner or a small museum and you might catch sight of the armor once worn to defend this hilltop, fought over for more than two thousand years, first as a sanctuary to Venus, later as a Norman fortress.
At the top, the Castello di Venere looks out over all of western Sicily. It’s the kind of view you stop talking in front of.
Wander down through the village and you’ll pass artisan workshops where textiles, ceramics and jewelry are still made by hand, worth stepping into, if only to talk to the person making them.
And then, of course, there’s the Genovese: a soft pastry filled with cream and dusted in sugar, born in a convent kitchen and still one of the reasons people come back to Erice.
