Part of the open air museum.
Mangiapane cave where time seems to have stopped.
25 May 2022 - Categorie: Sea, beaches, coasts and islands, Nature tourism, The places of the heart Tags:
This wonderful timeless place in north-western Sicily is the Mangiapane Cave located in Custonaci in the beautiful province of Trapani. Just 30 minutes from the popular tourist-seaside village of San Vito Lo Capo and located on the road that connects Castellammare del Golfo to the slopes of Monte Bufara in the Monte Cofano Reserve, it is absolutely one of the places that cannot be missed on your journey to discover Sicily.
Like a gash in the rocky wall behind the Dolomite peaks of Monte Cofano, the Mangiapane Cave stands, one of the 9 caves belonging to the Upper Palaeolithic that take the name of Caves of Scurati from the name of the hamlet of Custonaci. Among the 9 is the largest: 70 m high, 13 wide and 50 deep, it was inhabited from 1819 until the 1950s by the Mangiapane family who over the years created modest houses protected from the winter weather and the summer heat from the wonderful and luxuriant vegetation that surrounds them made of olive trees, carob trees and prickly pears.
A real testimony of and from the past which history has been brought back to life thanks to the studies of the archaeologists Guido Dalla Rosa, Raymond Vaufrey and Sebastiano Tusa. We owe to them the various findings including animal bones, obsidian and worked flint, rock paintings and ceramics from the prehistoric era.
Also nicknamed Grotta degli Uffizi, inside it housed a small village made up of a few houses whose families led an essential life made up of subsistence and love for the land far from the chaos of the city. In 1982 a group of local young people, with the help of the last member of the Mangiapane family still alive (Don Rosario Vanella), brought the village back to life by bringing back the splendors of the past: today the village is exactly as it was a century ago. Outside the cave, there is also a small open-air museum where you can admire the rural beauty of Sicily in all its facets. A real dive into the past that you cannot miss during your holidays in Sicily.
Like a gash in the rocky wall behind the Dolomite peaks of Monte Cofano, the Mangiapane Cave stands, one of the 9 caves belonging to the Upper Palaeolithic that take the name of Caves of Scurati from the name of the hamlet of Custonaci. Among the 9 is the largest: 70 m high, 13 wide and 50 deep, it was inhabited from 1819 until the 1950s by the Mangiapane family who over the years created modest houses protected from the winter weather and the summer heat from the wonderful and luxuriant vegetation that surrounds them made of olive trees, carob trees and prickly pears.
A real testimony of and from the past which history has been brought back to life thanks to the studies of the archaeologists Guido Dalla Rosa, Raymond Vaufrey and Sebastiano Tusa. We owe to them the various findings including animal bones, obsidian and worked flint, rock paintings and ceramics from the prehistoric era.
Also nicknamed Grotta degli Uffizi, inside it housed a small village made up of a few houses whose families led an essential life made up of subsistence and love for the land far from the chaos of the city. In 1982 a group of local young people, with the help of the last member of the Mangiapane family still alive (Don Rosario Vanella), brought the village back to life by bringing back the splendors of the past: today the village is exactly as it was a century ago. Outside the cave, there is also a small open-air museum where you can admire the rural beauty of Sicily in all its facets. A real dive into the past that you cannot miss during your holidays in Sicily.
Mangiapane Cave
The Hamlet.
Entrance to the cave.
Since 1983, the Living Nativity Scene has been held inside the Mangiapane Grotto which, thanks to 160 volunteers, revives the peasant and artisan traditions of the area. More than 70 scenes of life and 80 characters involved among children, young people and adults. Everything really happens before your eyes: the scent of freshly baked bread, freshly prepared cheeses, the sounds of ancient crafts, familiar scenes of other times ... because this is not a simple cave or another of the many villages: it is a real flagship of tourism in Italy. This jewel of a north-western Sicily with a rural and nostalgic taste every year attracts hundreds of tourists from all over the world and has been the protagonist of several television dramas including “Il Commissario Montalbano” and “Màkari” on Rai Uno. Don't you think time travel is possible? You are wrong. Come and visit La Grotta Mangiapane in Custonaci, the village will take care of making you come back between 1800 and 1900 and why not rent a Villa in the tourist-seaside resorts of San Vito lo Capo, famous for its Caribbean white beach and Scopello with the its characteristic village and the ancient and fascinating Tonnara?
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