Erice

The setting of this tiny city close to Palermo is incomparable. The town, placed on the homonymous mount Eryx, and nestles 2,464 feet above the sea in the mountains behind Trapani, has dramatic views of the Egadi Islands and Pantelleria and even, on a very clear day, Cape Bon in Tunisia. In its pretty narrow streets, the bustle of modern life is absent and the atmosphere is redolent of the past. Historically, Erice was a religious centre to fertility gods, the Phoenician Astarte, the Greek Aphrodite and the Roman Venus.  Erice was contended by the Syracusans and by the Carthaginians till the Roman conquest in 244 B.C..

During the Arabian invasion it was called Gebel Hamed (Mount of Hamed). In the XII century it gained again some of the lost importance and then followed the political fate of the island. It was called “St Giuliano Mount” by the Normans and retook Erice's name in 1934.

Among the numerous monuments there are some which are very important, for example the Chiesa Matrice (XIV century), consecrated to the Assunta (The Vergin Mary), the inside has been restored in the last century; the Medieval Castle (XII-XIII centuries) with the ruins of the temple and the Municipal Building, seat of a library and of the Museum of the Cordici, is full of archaeological finds belonging to the Erice's necropolis, among them the Aphrodite's head of the IV century B.C. stands out.

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