ACICASTELLO

The seaside town of Acicastello is among the most famous and sought after of eastern Sicily. It maintains a unique charm with its clear waters of the sea heaving onto ridges of lava stone in the shadows of the Norman castle from which the town takes its name.

Today it houses the Civic Museum, divided into three different sections: Paleontological section, mineralogical section, and archaeological section. Of particular importance are some examples of sea lava, the pillows, and blocks of spherical basalt which display radial fractures caused by the contact of magma with seawater.

Lastly, you can also visit the botanical gardens, in which there are a significant number of cacti plants. 

ACITREZZA

Acitrezza, a village of Acicastello, is a small, very charming fishing village. The landscape is dominated by the 8 Faraglioni (volcanic stacks), and lava cliffs that were formed before Etna.  These cliffs inspired the Odes of Homer for his Odyssey.

What makes the Faraglioni even more fascinating is the legend associated with them, which involves none other than Ulysses. On his journey home from the Trojan War, Ulysses docked on the Island of the Cyclops, where he was ‘greeted’ by the savage, man-eating giant Polyphemus. The cyclops devoured many of Ulysses’ travel companions. To be able to escape, Ulysses devised a plan to make Polyphemus drunk, then blinded him by his only eye. Enraged, Polyphemus began to throw large boulders against Ulysses’s ships as they were sailing away, thus giving rise to the Faraglioni.

These rock formations are indeed known to the locals as “Islands of the Cyclops,” because, according to legend, the Cyclops, in Greek and Roman mythology members of a primordial race of giants with a single eye in the center of their foreheads, once had a smithy below Mount Etna, which looms over Aci Trezza to the northwest.

All our featured excursions are included in the pricing of our retreats.  For more information see our website at https://charetreats.com/ or telephone us at 1.201.805.5570.