Erice is a medieval hilltop village perched 750 metres above Trapani on Sicily's west coast. The views from the top are spectacular, stretching over Trapani, the salt flats, and on clear days all the way to the Egadi Islands and, with exceptional clarity, across to Tunisia.
The village occupies the site of Eryx — an ancient Elymian city that was home to one of the most famous temples in the ancient Mediterranean world, the Temple of Venus Erycina. Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, and Normans all prized this mountaintop, and each left their mark. The ancient walls along the village perimeter contain Elymian, Punic, and Norman stonework stacked into a single fortification. The Castello di Venere stands on the temple site itself, at the most dramatic corner of the promontory.
The Cordici Museum holds the best of the archaeological finds, including a remarkable 4th-century BC marble head of Aphrodite. The Chiesa Madre at the village entrance was partly built from temple stone. And since 1963, the Ettore Majorana Foundation has used the medieval buildings for international scientific conferences, giving this ancient village a curiously modern layer of history.
The practical reason most people come is Maria Grammatico's pasticceria — the almond pastries here, made to convent recipes centuries old, are among the best in Sicily. A cable car from Trapani makes Erice an easy half-day trip, though the village rewards those who stay longer and let the crowds thin in the late afternoon.