Patron saint festival In 102 days
The Conversion of Saint Paul, patron of Esine
📅 Every year, on 25 January
Esine celebrates the Conversion of Saint Paul on 25 January, in the church dedicated to it.
The name of Esine appears for the first time in a donation of 979, though the date is disputed. In the twelfth century the village had a quarrel with Borno over a palisade built without leave on the Oglio, which as a result of that construction had changed its course: the dispute degenerated into a brawl that left eleven people dead, and it was settled only in October 1168, with a peace signed at Montecchio and the pulling down of the fence.
Water has gone on dictating the history of the place. The Oglio and the Grigna flooded the valley floor many times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and those floods killed a hundred and forty people in all; to cross the river a small boat was used, and a real bridge arrived only in 1836. Then, from the middle of the nineteenth century, chasms began to open in the plain and fill with water: they called them little lakes, and generations of geologists studied them. It was the dolomite of the valley floor dissolving; today only one is left, that of the Cilicele.
The Esine guide
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Esine 1
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Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Esine
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Esine, but an easy day trip away.
Bagni di Cefalà Diana 📍 Cefalà Diana · 8.4 km The only Islamic bathhouse still standing in Sicily: four sunken pools and a worn Kufic band Monte Porcara 📍 Bagheria · 16 km 388-metre mountain above Bagheria: walls and necropolis of a Hellenised indigenous settlement, perhaps ancient Paropo. Castello di Misilmeri 📍 Misilmeri · 17 km An Arab-Norman fortress built by Emir Jafar II between 998 and 1019 overlooking the Eleuterio River valley. Villa Valguarnera 📍 Bagheria · 18 km Eighteenth-century villa in Bagheria begun in 1712: key-shaped plan, frescoed salons and the Montagnola hill. Villa Palagonia 📍 Bagheria · 19 km Bagheria's villa of the monsters, which unsettled Goethe and entered Faust. Torre Amalfitano 📍 Bagheria · 17 km Farm tower in Bagheria, probably thirteenth-century, rebuilt in 1546: water cistern, warehouse and crenellated terrace.