#madonie

Calascibetta

Nous avons quitté Palerme pour Catane où nous attend notre avion. Après un crochet à Cefal, nous voici traversant l'île de part en part, ici dans les Madonie, vers le village de Scillato...

My mother comes from Pollina, a small village on the slopes of the mountain range Le Madonie. She left Sicily at the age of 21 and eventually moved to North Italy, where I was born a few years later. In our family’s ash tree field my mother’s cousin Giulio still extracts manna from the bark of some ash species – following one of the oldest agricultural traditions of the Mediterranean Sea. The precious sap was already known in ancient herbalism for its healing qualities and until the beginning of the 20th century the region around Pollina was one of Italy’s most important centres of production. But after World War II, the tradition was in danger of being forgotten. Recession and emigration let the small community disappear from the routes of mass tourism. Since 1989 the mountain range has been a nature reserve and the manna tradition is experiencing a new upswing. Pollina and the nearby villages are now the destination of green and cultural tourism. Thousand-year-old forests, but also ultra-modern motorway routes are the contrasting attributes of a region that is in the process of rediscovering itself.

landscapestories.net

landscapestories.net

landscapestories.net

landscapestories.net