Marzamemi

The rows of colourful one story fishermen’s houses are interrupted by the Tonnara, the disused tuna processing plant. The original was built by the Arabs in the X Century. Palazzo Principe Villadorata and the Chiesa di San Francesco di Paola tower over the fisherman’s houses.

The central Piazza Regina Margherita is everyone’s meeting place. The village is a sea of colour, the bright blue doors and windows, the potted red geraniums, the multicoulored wooden fishing boats, all against a background of the blue Mediterranean Sea.

If you like Sicilian delicacies visit Campisi, the traditional delicacy, bottarga, the dried tuna roe has changed very little since Arab-Phoenician times.

Marzamemi is a quiet little place most months in the year but explodes with tourists and activity in July and August. Well, explodes with activity – lingering sipping drinks in the Piazza or on the seashore and getting to bed in the early hours of the morning, waking up to sunbath on one of the sandy beaches and being spoilt for choice of a good fish restaurant.