The best cycling routes around Barrafranca

Amazingly well-preserved floors in a Roman villa. A must-see if you're in the area! 🤩

The impressive Villa Romana del Casale, a Roman country estate from the 3rd/4th century. It is unclear who built the villa. However, given its rich furnishings, thermal baths, halls, and private apartments, with a total of 3,500 square meters of floor mosaics, it could have been an imperial villa.

Here you can admire the following mosaic paintings: The Rape of the Sabine Women, Fishing Cupids and the Little Hunt

The Villa Romana del Casale is a late Roman villa urbana near the town of Piazza Armerina

The Villa Romana del Casale, located in Piazza Armerina in Sicily, constitutes a super-excellent example of a luxury late-imperial Roman villa. This archaeological structure has an emblematic significance in the context of the use of Roman territory as the fulcrum of the rural economy in the Western Empire. Noted for its artistic affluence and the superb quality of its mosaics dating back to the 4th century AD, it is universally recognized as the place where such in situ Roman mosaics reach their peak. This extraordinary mosaic heritage offers invaluable testimony to the habits of the Roman ruling class and the cultural dynamics between the Roman world and North Africa. With a total of 48 rooms, occupying an area of approximately 3,500 square meters, all adorned with mosaics of extraordinary mastery, presumably executed by skilled African artisans, it allows a deep immersion in the history of the Roman Empire through representations of daily life, heroic figures , deities, hunting scenes and games. The Villa del Casale therefore represents a fundamental document for the understanding of Roman life and civilization, with its impeccable conservation of the spaces and mosaics which constitute an unsurpassed fresco. Despite subsequent phases of habitation, including the Byzantine and early medieval periods (5th-7th centuries) and the Arab-Norman period (10th-12th centuries), followed by destruction and floods, the Roman complex was ultimately abandoned. However, it is thanks to the natural covering that has preserved many parts of the building that today we enjoy the extraordinary integrity of its mosaics.

The Archaeological Area of Sophiana, near Mazarin, reveals a Roman settlement active from the proto-imperial period until the 3rd century AD. The site, excavated between 1986 and 1990, showed a well-developed urban structure, with a spa complex, noble domus and various residential and commercial structures. It was a probable center of productive and commercial activities and a rest stop along the Catania-Agrigento road.

Lake Olivo is an artificial lake, formed following the construction of a dam in the 1980s. Despite its large size, the water level is generally low, but this does not mean that the surrounding landscape is of enchanting beauty.

Mazzarino, a small Sicilian town, rises on the plateaus of the Erei mountains, in the south-eastern area of the Nissena province, near the Gela plain. The town is known for its castle, 'U Cannuni, a 12th century fortress of Norman origin. Once the residence of the counts of Mazarin, the castle preserves a cylindrical tower and remains of walls, witnesses of its ancient grandeur and importance.