{"id":3144,"date":"2014-06-23T12:54:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-23T10:54:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rickzullo.com\/?p=3144"},"modified":"2021-09-12T15:37:24","modified_gmt":"2021-09-12T13:37:24","slug":"salt-flats-of-trapani","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/salt-flats-of-trapani\/","title":{"rendered":"The Salt Flats of Trapani"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"rick's<\/a>One of the stated goals of my summer blog tour was to find a few of the more unique spots in Italy.\u00a0 Yes, I briefly passed through Milan<\/a> and Florence<\/a>, (and of course my homebase in Rome),<\/a>\u00a0and they were incredible, as expected.\u00a0 But it\u2019s always a joy to find something unexpected<\/em> during your travels, and that\u2019s exactly what I discovered along the salt flats of Trapani.<\/p>\n

I guess I should clarify a few things.\u00a0 First, I wasn\u2019t exactly in Trapani, per se; I was in Nubia, a nearby village.\u00a0 In fact, we totally skipped the historical center of Trapani during our two-day visit. \u00a0Not sure if we missed something important, but I don\u2019t care, because our location was peaceful and relaxing, which was exactly what we needed after a full month on the road.\u00a0 Secondly, I said that this place is unique\u2014and it is\u2014but it\u2019s not exactly \u201cundiscovered.\u201d \u00a0Not that many tourists make it to this part of Sicily, but when they do, almost everybody snaps a quick photo of the windmills on their way to Agrigento from Palermo, for example.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Besides, I\u2019d seen these photos on the Internet, and perhaps you have too.\u00a0 So it wasn\u2019t a huge surprise.\u00a0 But what the photos can\u2019t capture is the overall ambiance created by the colors, the silence, the smell of the sea, the flatness of the terrain, and those salt mills dotting the panorama.\u00a0 Not like anyplace that I\u2019ve ever been before.\u00a0 You really need to settle in for a few days to let it have its effect on you.\u00a0 Which is exactly what we did.<\/p>\n

\"the<\/a><\/p>\n

A big part of the uniqueness I can directly attribute to our accommodations, a place called Relais Antiche Saline<\/a>. \u00a0Not sure if I\u2019d call it a hotel, resort, or agriturismo.\u00a0 I guess it\u2019s a little of all of those things.\u00a0 In fact, it was originally a working farmhouse, but it was restored into guest quarters in 2006, and now it blends perfectly with the natural landscape.\u00a0 It\u2019s not big, just 18 rooms including 4 \u201cfamily suites\u201d and one single room.\u00a0 But it holds a special place in the history of this region.\u00a0 I\u2019ll explain more in a bit.<\/p>\n

Really it\u2019s a simple place; four-star comfort, but with a family-like feel.\u00a0 We arrived in the middle of a hot, dry afternoon, and it felt like a desert town from\u00a0an old Western movie. \u00a0Cactus and tumbleweeds in the gravel parking lot; total silence except for the wind. \u00a0The sun was almost blinding, reflecting off the water and the white buildings.\u00a0 We quickly unpacked and put on our bathing suits. \u00a0It\u2019s that type of place, where a bathing suit feels like the most natural thing to wear, even when you\u2019re not in the pool.<\/p>\n

\"relaxing<\/a><\/p>\n

One thing to note: there isn\u2019t a full restaurant on the property.\u00a0 Instead, you walk along the salt pools for about 200 meters to the Trattoria del Sale<\/em><\/a>, which is owned by Salvatore Culcasi.\u00a0 Signor Culcasi manages the hotel, too (where he also lives year-round).\u00a0 One of his relatives owns the attached Museo del Sale<\/em><\/a>, so this is really a family business.\u00a0 It was all started by Salvatore\u2019s father, Alberto, who established this relationship between the local tourism office and the museum, which later included the hotel and the restaurant.\u00a0 The sum of this three-way synergy creates a special experience for the visitor, who feels like he has stepped back in time to witness the lives of the salt workers.\u00a0 Actually, your imagination doesn\u2019t have to strain too hard, because the workers are still there today, harvesting the salt in the exact same ancient way.<\/p>\n

\"museo<\/a><\/p>\n

We learned a lot about the history and traditions regarding salt production in this area during our visit to the museum.\u00a0 Many of the tools used today are exactly the same as they were centuries ago.\u00a0 The use of windmills was something introduced by the Phoenicians, who settled the area around 800 B.C., although these particular saline \u201conly\u201d date back to 1488 when it was constructed under orders from the King of Spain.<\/p>\n

The economy of this region has always been tied to the salt, and these days it\u2019s suffering a bit since there are easier ways to make it.\u00a0 And in this era of refrigeration, salt is no longer needed to preserve food.\u00a0 Indeed, the salt flats of Trapani exist today thanks only to the love of tradition by the locals.\u00a0 They use the shallow pools in off season to farm spigola<\/em>, a popular type of fish for the dinner table, thereby augmenting the income from the salt alone.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to the dinner that we enjoyed at the restaurant one night: it was one of the best meals of our entire blog tour.\u00a0 In fact, I\u2019d say that it was THE best \u201crestaurant\u201d meal that we had;\u00a0the only meals that were better came from the kitchens of our various hosts in Gittana<\/a>, Paciano<\/a>, and Palermo<\/a>.\u00a0 Here at the Trattoria del Sale<\/a>, their famous salt is used as a crust for cooking fish (the aforementioned spigola<\/em>).\u00a0 If you eat there, this is the one dish that you simply must<\/em> try.\u00a0 Surprisingly, it\u2019s not the least bit salty.\u00a0 After removing the layer of crusty salt, the tender meat inside is moist and flavorful\u2014resist the mindless habit of squeezing lemon on it, it\u2019s unnecessary.<\/p>\n

\"salt<\/a><\/p>\n

This part of Sicily is also known for cous-cous, which I would suggest for a first course.\u00a0 If you prefer pasta, then go for the pesto alla trapanese<\/em>.\u00a0 And for dessert, the typical choice is a parfait of mandorle<\/em> (almonds). \u00a0Light, creamy, and not too sweet.<\/p>\n

The area around Nubia is also a natural wonder.\u00a0 In fact, the World Wildlife Fund gives guided tours of the saline<\/em>, which is a stopping point for flamingoes and other water fowl on their migration routes to and from Africa, drawn to the tasty small crustaceans that live in the salty marshes.\u00a0 In the peak of the summer, the salt itself puts on a show, changing colors as it dries in the sun: first blue, then pink, then yellow, and finally white.\u00a0 This natural process is due to the bacteria that are present at different stages, until the conditions become too harsh (even for bacteria) and they all die off leaving only pure white salt rocks.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a great site to visit<\/a> to learn more about the natural beauty of this area.<\/p>\n

The triple-treat of the hotel, restaurant, and museum are open all year round.\u00a0 In the off season, it might be enough to just stop for two nights and indulge in this unique landscape and enjoy the local cuisine.\u00a0 During the summer, stay longer, using this as a base to explore Western Sicily, or else just relaxing by the pool and enjoying the silence.\u00a0 In this ever-more globalized information age, it has become difficult to find something unique and unexpected.\u00a0 But thank goodness, it\u2019s not entirely impossible.\u00a0 I found it among the salt flats of Trapani.<\/p>\n

\"when<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the stated goals of my summer blog tour was to find a few of the more unique spots in Italy.\u00a0 Yes, I briefly passed through Milan and Florence, (and of course my homebase in Rome),\u00a0and they were incredible, as expected.\u00a0 But it\u2019s always a joy to find something unexpected during your travels, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95,211],"tags":[384,140,248,381,247],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rickzullo.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}