Panorama Photo

Caltabellotta is the old Triokala: the "three times beautiful", for the safe rock, for the waters, for the fertility of the soil. As often happens in Sicily, however, its current name is Arabic in origin: Qalat al-Ballut, meaning "the castle of the oaks" (the similarity kala-qualat being only a coincidence, as far as I know).
But the name Caltabellotta is found on history handbooks with reference to a still different age: namely, my Aufnahmestandort coincides with the place where in 1302 was signed the treatise ending the "Guerra dei Vespri Siciliani", whose name is made popular also by a Verdi opera.
A place like this towers over centuries of history not less than over the Canale di Sicilia: an aspect, the latter, which I appreciated at its best some hours later, with an enchanting nearly full moon, but without any Aufnamhemoeglichkeit, having ascended to Triokala without a tripod...