On top of Monte Ottavio are two things you would not expect in a town of sixteen hundred people: the largest astronomical observatory in Sicily, with its planetarium, and the museum of the sulphur mine. The stars and the sulphur, on the same hill.
Sulphur here was everything: from 1815 to 1975 they dug the mines of Nadurello, Stazzone, Grottazze and Gibellini, and when the market collapsed in 1896 people left for the coal mines of Pennsylvania. The town had been founded on 29 March 1635 by prince Diego Aragona Cortez Tagliavia, on the fief of Balatazza. There are 1,643 residents.
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📅 Every year, on the first Sunday of October
Montedoro celebrates Our Lady of the Rosary on the first Sunday of October, in the church in the historic centre; the town, once a mining centre, today preserves the memory of this vocation in the Angelo Petix Sulfur Mine Museum.
Saffron rice, ragù with peas and caciocavallo cheese inside a golden crust. Round and feminine in Palermo, pointed and called arancino in Catania: the quarrel is serious.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Outside Montedoro, but an easy day trip away.
