Selinunte feels like a place where time stopped. By the sea, near Castelvetrano in Trapani, it’s today an archaeological site. Once, though, it was a strong and busy city. At its height almost one hundred thousand people lived here. Founded in the 7th century BCE, it controlled the Mediterranean trade. Then in 409 BCE the Carthaginians came, destroyed it, and left silence behind.
Walking through the ruins is more than looking at columns. It feels like moving inside a town that just went quiet. Temple E, for Hera, still stands with force. Temple G, the biggest the Greeks ever tried to build, collapsed before it was finished, like a giant that never got up.
Not far away, about ten kilometers, you find the Cave di Cusa. Here the blocks for the temples were cut. Work stopped suddenly. Huge drums of stone are still lying in the fields, half-shaped, as if the workers left for lunch and never returned. You walk among them and the feeling is strange, like time breaking off.
Reaching Selinunte is easy. From Palermo you take the A29. In little more than an hour and a half you reach Castelvetrano. A short road among olive trees and vineyards brings you to the park. Around it the land offers more stops: Marsala with its salt and wine, Mazara del Vallo with the bronze Satyr, Sciacca with its hot springs and ceramics. A mix of nature and culture, typical of western Sicily.
A visit here is not only about history. You feel the sea wind, the white dust on your shoes, the sharp light cutting the stones. Every wall speaks—about glory and fall, memory and forgetting.
Selinunte belongs to Sicily, but it also belongs to the world. A fragile reminder that beauty must be cared for, if we want it alive for those who come after us.
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Alessandro Sicuro
Brand Strategist | Photographer | Art Director | Project Manager
Alessandro Sicuro Comunication
Sure-com America 