At Scurati there is a cave with a village inside it: the Grotta Mangiapane, lived in since prehistory and later filled with real houses, which since 1983 comes back to life every Christmas with a living nativity. All around lies Europe's second marble basin: some hundred working quarries and about fifty workshops.
The town grew around the sanctuary of the Madonna of Custonaci, which keeps a fifteenth-century panel from the school of Antonello da Messina: tradition says a French ship brought it, having escaped a storm by taking shelter in the gulf of Cornino. Custonaci was the first part of the Erice countryside to become a comune, on 3 December 1948; there are 5,392 residents.
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📅 Every year, on the last Wednesday of August
Custonaci celebrates its Madonna on the last Wednesday of August; tradition holds that the 15th-century painting venerated in the sanctuary arrived by sea, a gift from a French ship that survived a storm thanks to a vow.
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 Custonaci, but an easy day trip away.
