Trapani, the town of the primitives and an ancient place of residence, is surrounded by the sea from all sides.

Trapani was founded by the Elymians to serve as the port of the nearby city of Erice (ancient Eryx), which overlooks it from Monte San Giuliano. The city sits on a low-lying promontory jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea.

The  land occupied by Trapani’s Old Town once was at the heart of a powerful trading network that stretched from Carthage to Venice. Traditionally the town thrived on coral and tuna fishing, with salt and wine production.

Much of the old city of Trapani dates from the later medieval or early modern periods; there are no extant remains of the ancient city. Many of the city’s historic buildings are designed in the Baroque style.

The city is renowned for its Easter related Holy Week activities and traditions, culminating between Good Friday and Holy Saturday in the Processione dei Misteri di Trapani, colloquially simply the Misteri di Trapani (in English the Procession of the Mysteries of Trapani or the Mysteries of Trapani), a day-long passion procession organized and sponsored by the city’s guilds, featuring twenty floats of lifelike wood, canvas and glue sculptures, mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries, of individual scenes of the events of the Passion.

The Misteri are among the oldest continuously running religious events in Europe, having been played every Good Friday since before the Easter of 1612. Running for at least 16 continuous hours, but occasionally well beyond the 24 hours, they are the longest religious festival in Sicily and in Italy.

The city gives its name to a variety of pesto – pesto alla trapenese – made using almonds instead of the traditional pine nuts in Ligurian pesto.

Trapani was also used, even if never mentioned by name, but only evidenced in movie scenes, as the base for filming the first serie of La piovra drama miniseries.

The port is the main embarkation point for the Egadi archipelago and the remote Moorish island of Pantelleria; ferries to Tunisia also leave from here.

Do not miss the amazing sunset that paints the entire city of a red fire burning.

Henry Borzi