Canicattini Bagni

“Sometimes a warm wind creeps into a lamenting shiver in the telegraph wires along the balconies, hits the oleanders of the square and the palms against the walls of the gardens, then it approaches in a murmur, precipitating like a waterfall. So I thought it was the arrival of death. The calm returned suddenly, the green branches in the shadow, the sun more white and the mule's footsteps on the black ‘bàsole’ to resume their journey.”

Canicattini Bagni, from Arabic Ayn-at-tin (Mud Spring), is a city of Liberty, and its territory is one of the most interesting examples of "Cultural Landscape". Many buildings here recall the Art Nouveau style. During the period between the two wars, the mastery of Iblei carvers gave the city some extraordinary decorative creations that adorn the facades of many buildings. Canicattini Bagni is also the city of Music, which diffuses sounds during summer nights into the vast and fertile plain populated with olive and fruit trees until the “Riserva Naturale di Cavagrande del Cassibile” with the spectacular Avola ponds.

The territory was originally inhabited by the Siculi, then by the Romans and the Byzantines, and then from 1296 with Federico II d’Aragona, and for four centuries became a feud. Interesting, just outside the settlement, is the testament of the arched stone bridge of S. Alfano, built in 1796 to connect the feud with the land of Canicattini. Currarinu and Calamaru, the two figures carved into the bridge, carry a bottle and a loaf of bread, and the legend says that, hating each other, they both killed each other right on the bridge.

Do not miss the gastronomic experience with homemade pasta, the “cavati” and sheep and goat cheeses, maybe after a hike to the "Cava Cardinale'', a curious stop at the troglodyte houses in Cugno-Case Vecchie and a visit to the unique "Museo dei Sensi del tessuto dell’Emigrante e della Medicina Popolare”.

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The HUB of Canicattini Bagni constitutes, with its GATE located in via XX Settembre near the Info Point of the Pro Loco, one of the important access points to the 'Smart Land Iblei'. From the GATE, one of the three main bicycle routes, “Il Fiume Cavagrande”, takes off. The first stage of 43 km and 639 meters of difference in height, through the Monasteri road and the La Marchesa crossroad, allows to have a view of the “Riserva Naturale di Cavagrande del Cassibile" cliffs, and to return to Canicattini from where, passing the S. Alfano bridge, you take off towards Cassaro, with a second stage of 23 km and 534 meters of difference in height. Canicattini is the point of arrival of the fifth and final stage of the route: 35.6 km and 368 meters of difference in height with departure from Palazzolo Acreide.