For Saint Joseph's day, in Borgetto, every house prepares a room with white curtains and a table laid for three poor children: they are called the mense, and the procession sets off from the oldest house in the village with a donkey and a Madonna. A book published in 1906 already described them just like this.
The name comes from the Greek pyrgos, a high fortified place — the same root as the German burg — and indeed the coat of arms shows a tower. In the fourteenth century Margherita d'Escolo left the fief to the abbot of San Martino delle Scale on one condition: that he build a monastery here. In 1413 the friars raised another one, the Romitello. There are 7,021 residents.
Sfincione · Arancina · Pasta alla Norma
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Next up: Saint Mary Magdalene, the patroness with a procession described as early as 1775, Thursday 22 July
Nearest airport: Palermo Falcone-Borsellino, 15 km away
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📅 Every year, on 22 July
Borgetto celebrates Saint Mary Magdalene on 22 July, the town's name day: an observer in 1775 described the procession as «extremely large and splendid», with sixty participants out of a population of just a thousand.
Tall, soft bread dough, tomato, onion, anchovies, oregano and caciocavallo: sfincione is Palermo's focaccia, cut into squares.
Read more →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 Borgetto, but an easy day trip away.
