The name comes from a Spanish family, the de la Cerda, and that nickname — cerda, in Spanish, is a pig's bristle — is said to have arisen because Ferdinand, the founder of the line, was born with a tuft of hair on his chest. One of his descendants, Giuseppe Santostefano e Cerda, obtained from Philip IV in 1659 the licence to settle these fiefs.
Before that there was only a fondaco on the road between the coast and the Madonie, where travellers and merchants stopped. Today Cerda is the artichoke town — it even has a monument to it — and a few kilometres away, out in the fields, stand the grandstands of the Targa Florio, the oldest road race in the world. There are 5,391 residents.
Sfincione · Arancina · Pasta alla Norma
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Next up: The Virgin Mary of Sorrows, patroness with solemn religious and civic events, Monday 16 August
Nearest airport: Palermo Falcone-Borsellino, 71 km away
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📅 Every year, on 16 August
Cerda celebrates the Virgin Mary of Sorrows on 16 August, with solemn religious and civic events; also particularly venerated is the Madonna della Catena, whose sanctuary in the Baiata district is the destination of an annual pilgrimage on the last Sunday of August.
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.
