We stayed here for two days in a nice hotel near the ocean, which was a nice break.
In this area, near the city of Trapani, you see lots of very old windmills that were used to pump sea water into salt pans situated along the coast to produce salt. And when you taste much Italian cooking, you know there was/is certainly a demand for salt here. Say for instance on anchovies and capers.
Monica and I also checked out the ancient city of Erice, which is on top of Mount Erice, 750M above sea level, overlooking the city of Trapani, on the western coast towards Marsala.You take a gondola up the mountain from Trapani to get to Erice.
In the northeastern portion of the city there are the remains of ancient Elymian and Phoenician walls indicating different stages of settlement and occupation in antiquity.
There are two castles that remain in the city: Pepoli Castle, which dates from Saracen times, and the Venus Castle, dating from the Norman period, built on top of the ancient Temple of Venus, where Venus Ericina was worshipped.
Venus Erycina ("Venus from Eryx"), also called Venus Erucina, was worshipped at the temples erected to here on the Capitoline Hill and outside the Porta Collina. She embodied "impure" love, and was the patron goddess of prostitutes.
In his book On the Nature of Animals, Aelian writes that animals chosen for sacrifice would voluntarily walk up to the altar to be killed.
The crazy thing is how much the weather can differ between Trapani and Erice. The day we went up, it was about 30 degrees Celsius in Trapani, and humid. Up on Eric it was maybe 10 degrees at most. We showed up wearing shorts and t-shirts and got a real shock.
It's a very touristy destination, but with some nice restaurants and views and of course, all the built history to take in.
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