Petralia Soprana is a pretty small village near Palermo – where you can find some of our best Luxury Villas in Sicily – and also the highest Municipality of Madonie Mountains. The village is currently competing for the title of Borgo dei Borghi, a ranking list compiled by the homonymous private association to promote the small Italian towns of “strong historical and artistic interest” founded in 2001 which aim is preserving and maintaining villages of quality heritage. The charming hamlet of Petralia Soprana boasts a great historical and cultural heritage that surely deserves to be admired. In Petralia Sottana you can feel the typical athmosphere of a beautiful medieval ancient village. Wrapped by the Mediterranean scrub and forests, it was called in the 9th century Batraliah, after being conquered by the Normans by Ruggero Count of Altavilla it was fortified assuming the current urban connotation, which elevates it to a superb Madonite town. Here we find for example the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, which has a portico of columns made by Fratelli Serpotta which houses the first Crucifix attributed to friar Umile da Petralia, the Church of Santa Maria di Loreto, an ancient fortress transformed into a church by the Discalced Carmelites and rebuilt in 1750 with a Greek cross plan and a Baroque façade with Serpotta’ sculptures. The beautiful Petralia Soprana is a very interesting tourist destination if you’re wondering where to spend your next autumn holiday in Sicily because it offers to its visitors natural landscapes of indescribable beauty framed by baronial palaces, 3 belvedere – Loreto – called U Castru in Sicilian – which includes Mount Etna and, in a clockwise direction, Enna, Caltanissetta and the valley of the river Imera; Carmine and the panorama of western Sicily towards Palermo; and the one of Piazza Duomo with Gangi and Mount Etna in the background – as well as ancient remains of old Roman architectural masterpieces.
For those who cannot resist Sicilian food Petralia Soprana offers a wide selection of typical Sicilian sweets such as u risu duci (sweet rice), cinnamon biscuits and sfoglio with tuma cheese, chocolate and cinnamon, as well as genuine strictly organic dairy products like pecorino, caciocavallo and ricotta. The most daring ones can try out exciting excursions inside the Madonie Park discovering the sites of Gorgo Pollicino and Piano Catarineci and acrobatic routes through the Madonie Adventure Park.
Picture: Church of Santa Maria di Loreto. Author: Mediaterra. Source: Wikipedia
