Page 412 - The Rough Guide of Sicily

own restaurant, pool and gardens. €90

Sperlinga

Some 10km west of Nicosia, SPERLINGA owes its name to the numerous cave-
dwellings (from the Latin spelunca, cave), some hundreds of years old, that pit the

sandstone slopes below the town. Several were inhabited until recently, furnished
with mod cons such as microwaves and fridges.

The castello

Daily 9.30am–1.30pm & 4–6.30pm • €2
With its storerooms, cellars, stables and steps hewn out of the rock, Sperlinga is
dominated by a formidable battlemented castello. Sperlinga was the only town in

Sicily to open its doors to the Angevins, bloodily expelled from other Sicilian towns
during the thirteenth-century Wars of the Vespers: barricading themselves inside the
castle, the French held out for a year before surrendering. Just below the castle, a
small archeological and ethnographical museum (same ticket and times as castle)
contains the usual motley collection of historical items and old agricultural and

domestic artefacts.

ARRIVAL AND DEPARTURE: SPERLINGA

By bus There is one daily bus to Sperlinga from Enna, run by SAIS ( saisautolinee)
and departing Mon–Sat during school term-time only from Enna’s bus terminal, via

Calascibetta, leaving at 2.10pm. The return is the following day at 6.20am.

Troina

From a distance, TROINA appears like a thimble perched on a hill, 1120m high. A
twisting 30km ride from Nicosia, the town has long played a strategic role in the

various wars and power struggles that have racked Sicily, initially coming to
prominence during the reconquest of Sicily from the Arabs, when it became one of the
first cities to be taken by the Normans. Count Roger withstood a siege here in 1061
that nearly put paid to his Sicilian adventures, a victory he commemorated by founding
the monastery of San Basilio, now in ruins. The top of town features an eleventh-
century cathedral with an adjacent fifteenth-century church dedicated to San Giorgio

(notice the relief of George and the Dragon above the door under the cupola). The
wide piazza-terrace in front has a simply magnificent Etna view, while beyond
stretches the main street. It’s laid out along a high ridge, and it makes for an
atmospheric stroll down a narrow thoroughfare between noble mansions with a steep
drop to either side.