Patron saint festival In 252 days
Feast of Saint John the Baptist
📅 Every year, on 24 June
On 24 June Sperlinga celebrates Saint John the Baptist; on 16 August, instead, it is the turn of the Lady of the Castles and the tortone festival.
On the arch of the castle passage there is a Latin inscription: «quod Siculis placuit, sola Sperlinga negavit» — what pleased the Sicilians, only Sperlinga refused. During the Vespers, in 1282, a French garrison shut itself in here and held out against the siege for more than a year.
The castle is dug into the sandstone, and below it the town continues inside the rock: the caves of via Valle were lived in for millennia. In Sperlinga they speak Gallo-Italic, as in the other Lombard towns of Sicily. In the Capostrà district, in July 1943, Robert Capa took the photograph of a peasant pointing out the road to an American soldier: it went round the world. There are 833 residents.
The Sperlinga guide
What to see 1
Castello di Sperlinga
What to eat here 2
Pasta alla Norma · Cassatella di Agira
Where to stay 16
16 places to stay · top rated: lacasetta98 9.8 · Dimora del Duomo 9.6
Events & festivals 1
Next up: Feast of Saint John the Baptist, Thursday 24 June
Getting there
Nearest airport: Catania Fontanarossa, 71 km away
Tours, tickets and experiences
Bookable on GetYourGuideExperiences in Sperlinga
🎉 Festivals and feasts in Sperlinga 1
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What to see in Sperlinga
🍝 The flavours of Sperlinga
Cassatella di Agira half-moon shortcrust pastry filled with cocoa, almonds and chickpea flour
A golden half-moon of shortcrust dusted with icing sugar, hiding cocoa, chopped almonds and chickpea flour: the sweet of Agira, in the Erei mountains, a recognised traditional product with its own municipal denomination.
Read more →Straight-line distances from the town centre. Tap a point to open its page.
Near Sperlinga
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
Places to see within 25 km
Outside Sperlinga, but an easy day trip away.