smell. As soon as you get to City of sweet wine, I recognize the smell. Although it is the first time that we reach Marsala. The air smells of salt water, of Sicily, in Africa. And history. Marsala was an integral part of the first civilizations of the world and its past and its future are tied to the broader domain of Sicily, which has honored all the time, Italy, Europe. Natural bridge between Italy and Africa, its history is a chronological series of invasions, wars, riots, intrigues and conspiracies for dominance in the Mediterranean. For the wickedness of man the city walls collapsed, but the centuries have left us a few scraps that remind and remember, if men do not cover with reinforced concrete, the grandeur of this city.
So the sun is shining on these western shores of Sicily that everything is clear, almost transparent. The same waters that caress the old Lilybeo, kissed by the warm rays reflect silver color as if the Lord had given this land two skies, one of the other sea of \u200b\u200bclouds. And from the same waterfront, overlooking Cape Boeo, you can see Porta Garibaldi. Through it is like taking a step along one hundred and fifty years.
The violence of man, with the Anglo-American bombing in 1943, and its equally overwhelming stupidity, with the reckless, and have reduced much of the memory that thousands of years had branded the promontory Marsala. And that is why today, Marsala, is also the city of Cristina, who wants more from life but did not get, that would do more in life but can not, for not thinking about the future, wiped out past.
Marsala, almost, can not remember Lilybeo and squirms in the mediocrity of our day cleaning up the consciousness with a past of fresh paint on the abuses for decades. The pride, the primary characteristic of the people Lilibet and lost over the centuries, today revived the memory of 11 May 1860, when Garibaldi landed on the shores of the city with its thousands of men. This is Marsala today, a place capable of emotions for an event that actually has been finally sentenced her to oblivion. And if half of the nineteenth century could justify the weary resignation of a people who for more than a thousand years had slipped inexorably into the sadness of submission, I really can not understand how today the heir of those people who lived in the glorious Lilybeo not reclaim, with facts and not just in words, the role that history has always given: the gateway to the Mediterranean.
the various museums in the city (the Baglio Anselmi holds the remains of a Punic ship of the third century BC) and especially the rediscovery of quell'inestimabile Mothya treasure that is, they seem to demonstrate how, perhaps, a new seed is sprouting in the far west of the island. And so that can not be.
A gentleman, well covered to guard against the strong wind that blows constantly on the shores of the Lagoon, it makes me sit on a boat docked at the pier town of Marsala, the so-called Pier. And from there we move, lulled by the serene waters of the Reserve, to Mothya. The depths never exceed five feet, and this was just one of the secrets that allowed first the Phoenicians, Carthaginians and then to make a stand against the Romans. It is said that even Hannibal Rhodes, a bold Carthaginian, Roman ships passed the block and come out of the harbor, as if to provoke the enemy waiting for them oars lifted, to give them time to pursue him.
a narrow viaduct, paved with stones and protected from the full flowering of shrubs, welcome on the island. Whitaker in the museum, the first appearance at the end of the short climb, you are guarded archaeological dating over two thousand years. Shivers at the thought. But it just walking in history, through the narrow streets of the islet, which we realize what a wonderful journey through time you Mothya gifts. Protected on all four sides by a low sea by narrow strips of land, the ancient Phoenician colony thriving is a series of mosaics, green plants and amazing views. It 's like if you look out from a balcony from which you can see, depending on the location choice, the whole sea in the world.
Back in 2010, I left Marsala with her scent on him, breathing in peace with its beautiful library and a first step after the calm waters, with the feeling of having seen at first hand a world unknown to modern man so stressed out and lost in useless pastimes have erased from his past.
In the long ride home, though, I had the feeling you have not left Marsala, but had in fact found forever. And with the hope that like the Phoenix, the fabulous bird symbol of immortality because it always reborn from its ashes, Marsala can also repeat the miracles of Mothya before and after Lilybeo. Always reborn. Forever.