Luxury Marsala Holidays

Marsala is a coastal town known for its ancient ruins, fortified Marsala wine and Stagnone Nature Reserve of salt pans and migratory birds. Its Baglio Anselmi Archaeological Museum has a large collection of pottery and an ancient shipwreck from the First Punic War. The Grignani Palace houses a picture gallery, and the Flemish Tapestry Museum has well-preserved 16th-century pieces.

The heart of Marsala is the piazza in front of the town's Duomo, which is dedicated to St. Thomas a Becket. This square, called Piazza della Repubblica or Piazza Loggia, is a pleasant place for a promenade or refreshments at the cafe opposite the cathedral. The Duomo has been rebuilt several times on its original Norman foundations. Other restorations of historic buildings in Marsala, have been carried out with a bold modernist style setting off their surviving original features.

Visitors interested in the local wine will find various bars and enoteche, wine bars, where Marsala can be sampled and purchased.

There are various sights of interest within easy reach of Marsala: the archaeological island of Mozia and the picturesque salt pans which line the shore between Marsala and Trapani. The neighbouring seaside town Mazara del Vallo is worth a visit to see one of the finest surviving bronze statues of antiquity, a beautiful sculpture known as the Satiro Danzante, Dancing Satyr, recovered from the seabed in the 1990's and now housed in its own museum in Mazara.