Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
ADVANCE PLANNING
Traditional celebrations are heartfelt in these parts and watching them is an unforgettable experience. You won't
need to book tickets but it pays to think ahead about accommodation.
»
Holy Week (
Click here
) - Plan to be in Enna for one of the town's sinister Holy Week processions, the best of
which is on Good Friday.
»
Festa di San Giacomo (
Click here
) - Book ahead for Caltagirone's annual shindig on 24 and 25 July. The high-
light is the spectacular illumination of the town's famous staircase.
»
Palio Dei Normanni (
Click here
) - Accommodation is at a premium in Piazza Armerina on 13 and 14 August
as crowds gather for the annual medieval pageant.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Caltagirone
POP 39,500 / ELEV 608M
Caltagirone, an attractive hilltop town, is renowned throughout Sicily for its ceramics. The
area's high-quality clay has supported production for more than 1000 years and still today
the industry is an important money-spinner. The town's earliest settlers worked with terra-
cotta but it was the Arabs, arriving in the 10th century, who kick-started the industry by
introducing glazed polychromatic colours, particularly the yellows and blues that have
distinguished the local ceramics ever since. Everywhere you go in Caltagirone you're re-
minded of its ceramic traditions, most emphatically at the Scalinata di Santa Maria del
Monte, the town's celebrated ceramic-inlaid staircase.
Caltagirone's history dates to pre-Greek times but the town's name is Arabic in origin, a
derivation of the words
kalat
and
gerun,
meaning 'castle' and 'cave'. Little remains of the
town's early incarnations as it was almost entirely destroyed by the earthquake in 1693
and subsequently rebuilt in the baroque style so typical of Sicily's southeast.
Sights & Activities
Scalinata di Santa Maria
Del Monte
Caltagirone's most evocative sight is this monumental staircase, known locally as the Sc-
alinata di Santa Maria del Monte, which rises from Piazza Municipio to the
Chiesa di Santa
Maria del Monte
, at the top of the town. Built in the early 17th century to connect the old
HISTORIC STAIRCASE
