On 16 June 827 the Muslims of Africa landed at Capo Granitola, just along the coast: Islamic Sicily begins at Mazara. The city came out of it transformed — it became the island's greatest centre of law and the second town of the Vallo after Palermo — and the kasbah, the maze of narrow lanes and ceramics in the centre, is one of the very few pieces of Arab architecture left in Sicily. In 1216 Frederick II deported every Muslim in the area to Lucera, in Apulia, and farming and craft here did not recover for centuries.
Mazara is the point of Sicily closest to Africa: less than two hundred kilometres from the Tunisian coast, and in the kasbah today lives a long-settled Tunisian community. The port arms some four hundred large deep-sea trawlers with four thousand fishermen aboard: it is the leading fishing district in Italy, and the red prawn is its culinary standard. In 1998 the nets of a Mazara trawler pulled up a masterpiece: the Dancing Satyr, a Greek bronze that has been spinning for two millennia and now fills, on its own, the museum built for it. The Norman seafront and the couscous close the story.
Riserva naturale integrale Lago Preola e Gorghi Tondi · basilica Cattedrale del Santissimo Salvatore · chiesa della Madonna delle Giummare and 8 more
Arancina · Pasta alla Norma
20 places to stay · top rated: Makara Awake 9.5 · Hotel Rainbow Resort 9.4
Next up: U fistinu di Santu Vitu, Tuesday 15 June
Nearest airport: Trapani Birgi, 30 km away
Mazara del Vallo is part of 🏖️ Seaside
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📅 Every year, on 15 June; the festino between the second-to-last and the last week of August
Mazara's patron is Saint Vitus, on 15 June, but the festino is held in August: it opens with a proclamation in 17th-century dress and closes with the statue taken aboard a fishing boat.
Riserva naturale integrale Lago Preola e Gorghi Tondi Lakes and karst ponds near Mazara del Vallo, a Ramsar wetland with herons, coots and Sicilian pond turtles. 
basilica Cattedrale del Santissimo Salvatore Roger I's cathedral of 1072, with the Gaginis' marble Transfiguration in the presbytery. 
chiesa della Madonna delle Giummare Byzantine-Norman church founded by Roger I in 1072, with Byzantine frescoes and a 14th-century portal. 
chiesa di San Francesco d'Assisi A Baroque church of 1703 over a Christian crypt from 250 AD and the Norman basilica of 1093. 
chiesa di San Michele Baroque church in Mazara del Vallo with a 1532 ciborium by Antonello Gagini and frescoes by Sciacca. 
chiesa di San Nicolò Regale Built in 1124, an Arab-Norman cube church on the bank of the Mazaro in Mazara del Vallo. 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 Mazara del Vallo, but an easy day trip away.
