Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
(
www.comune.erice.tp.it/minisitocastello
; Via Castello di Venere; adult €3, 8-14yr or 65+ €1.50, child under 8 free;
10am-6pm daily Apr-Oct, 10am-4pm Sat & holidays Nov-Mar)
The Norman Castello di Venere was built
in the 12th and 13th centuries over the Temple of Venus, which had long been a site of
worship for the ancient Elymians. The views from up top, extending to San Vito Lo Capo
on one side and the Saline di Trapani on the other, are spectacular.
Eating
Caffè Maria offers a well-priced simple tourist menu comprising an antipasto,
primo
(first
course), sweet, coffee and water for €13, which is worth considering as most of the town's
restaurants serve mediocre food solely geared towards a tourist clientele.
DON'T MISS
MARIA GRAMMATICO
This
pasticceria
( 0923 86 93 90;
www.mariagrammatico.it
; Via Vittorio Emanuele 14; 9am-10pm May,
Jun & Sep, to 1am Jul & Aug, to 7pm Oct-Apr) is owned and run by the delightful Maria Grammatico, Sicily's
most famous pastry chef and the subject of Mary Taylor Simeti's book
Bitter Almonds.
In the early 1950s, Maria's father died suddenly of a heart attack. Her impoverished mother, pregnant with a
sixth child, decided to send Maria, aged 11, and her younger sister to the cloistered San Carlo orphanage in Erice
to learn the art of pastry-making from the nuns. There, the children toiled in brutally hard conditions - beating
sugar mixtures for six hours at a time, rising before dawn to prime the ovens, shelling kilos of almonds and sur-
viving on an unrelenting diet of meatless pasta and vegetable gruel. At 22, Maria left the orphanage after having a
nervous breakdown and started making sweets and pastries to survive. The rest, as they say, is history.
The world-famous
pasticceria
, with its shady courtyard out back, and the associated
Caffè Maria
OFFLINE MAP
GOOGLE MAP
(
www.caffe-maria-erice.it
;
Via Vittorio Emanuele 4; 8.30am-9pm Oct-May,
till midnight Jun-Sep) , with its panoramic upstairs terrace, are good places to take a break as you wander around
Erice. At either place you can sample Sicilian treats such as
cannoli
filled with fresh ricotta; green
cassata
cakes
made of almonds, sugar, vanilla, buttermilk curd and candied fruit; perfectly formed marzipan fruits; lemon-fla-
voured
cuscinetti
(small fried pastries); and
buccellati
(hard, baked cookies) twisted around fig, cinnamon and
clove comfit. At Easter, the shop is filled with super-cute almond-citron baby lambs that are made to celebrate
Erice's
I Misteri
celebration. Be warned that the produce here uses more sugar than is usual - your dentist would
certainly not approve!
Orientation
All vehicles arrive in Piazza Grammatico, from where you enter the town through the
Porta Trapani. The funicular station and the bus stop are also here. From the piazza, Corso
Vittorio Emanuele, the town's steep main road, heads up to Piazza Umberto I, the central
