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3 Weird
Places You Need To See in Sicily
Sicily
is an island, located like a football off the toe of Italy. It’s a fascinating
place, with its own culture and traditions and plenty of attractions. However,
besides the beaches, historic sites and cities, there is also a stranger
side to Sicily and we have picked out three unusual sites to visit on a
Sicilian holiday.
When
next visiting this Italian island, stay in comfort in a luxury villa from
Oliver’s
Travels. Once you’re settled in and unpacked, head out to visit these
weird attractions.
1. Il
Castello Incantato
Il Castello
Incantato – or Enchanted Castle in English – is the work of what some consider
to be the village madman. Filippo Bentivegna had travelled to the U.S.
in 1929 to escape military service under Mussolini, but returned to Sicily
after seven years. It is unsure if Bentivegna had suffered brain damage
from an assault, or had his heart broken by a woman during his U.S. stay.
Whatever it was, his mind became unraveled. While his crime could have
led to a jail sentence on return to Italy, Bentivegna managed to escape
that due to insanity. He then used that same madness to buy himself some
land and create this fascinating place.
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Photo
Il Castello Incantato by magalibobois/Wikimedia/
CC BY 2.0
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Il
Castello Incantato is a huge sculpture garden on the outskirts of Sciacca,
containing around 1,000 sculptures of human heads. While he was carving
the heads from the natural rock on the property, he lived in a tiny cabin.
It took him some 35 years to create the garden.
According
to Atlas
Obscura, while villagers never appreciated his art, when Bentivegna
died in 1967, his family made the sculpture garden into a tourist site
and now many people visit it each year to admire his work. Besides the
sculptured heads, there are also several fascinating frescoes created by
Bentivegna on the walls of his cabin, including this image of the New York
skyline.
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Photo
Fresco of New York in Il Castello Incantato by magalibobois/Wikimedia/
CC BY 2.0
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2. Capuchin
Monastery Catacombs
For something
a little more eerie and decidedly morbid, head to Palermo to visit the
Capuchin Monastery. While from outside the building looks perfectly normal,
visitors have the opportunity to head down into the catacombs.
Anyone
who has been to the Catacombs of Paris will find this experience decidedly
different. What you will find there is almost 8,000 corpses which have
either been pinned to the walls, recline on shelves and benches, or lie
in open coffins throughout the catacombs.
The
major difference here is that all these corpses have been dressed up to
the nines. There are different categories to explore including a room full
of doctors, another room with women and infants and yet another for religious
people (pictured left).
Reportedly
the oldest corpse is that of a friar called Silvestro da Gubbio, who died
in 1599. The most recently added corpse is that of a two-year-old girl,
Rosalia Lombardo, who died in 1920. She is so well preserved she has been
given the nickname “Sleeping Beauty.”
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3. Scala
dei Turchi (Turkish Steps)
Heading
to Realmonte in Agrigento, the Turkish Steps were created by natural erosion
of the Marl, silt and clay on the cliff above the beach. The stairway got
its name from the invasions of Turkish pirates in the past, as the steps
gave them easy access to plunder the island.
Nowadays
the steps are ideal for climbing to the top to experience the view or a
beautiful sunset over the Mediterranean Sea, the perfect way to end a fascinating
visit to Sicily.
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