The cork-oak forest of Niscemi is a green monument: one of Sicily's last great cork woods, now a nature reserve, which for centuries employed bark-strippers and charcoal burners. The other pride grows in the fields: the violet artichoke of Niscemi, celebrated every spring by a fair that draws half the province.
The town, rebuilt after 1693 on the plateau's edge, overlooks the plain of Gela down to the sea. Among eighteenth-century churches and courtyards, this is inland Sicily at work — with an ancient forest for breath.
Near Niscemi
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
