Direct flights have been scheduled from Lamezia and Catania. These destinations were chosen in order to provide the market with a product that combines both pleasure and nature. A wide choice of hotels is also available to satisfy the needs and pocketbooks of different types of customers
A Sicily off the beaten paths
A large part of JTS’s programs for Sicily is based on promoting the area. The extensive cultural heritage of an island like Sicily helped us to select a number of interesting proposals to discover the many possible “Sicilys”. The in-depth knowledge of our land plus the experience and skills acquired in the tourism sector have helped to create a high-quality product that will satisfy the special needs of the even most demanding travellers, helping them to discover the thousand facets of Sicily and rediscover old pleasures.
Sortino, Pantalica and the Anapo Valley
Sortino, a small mountain village above the valley of the Iblei, is famous for the beauty of the surrounding landscape and for the traditions it continues to conserve. It is the guardian of invaluable treasures for which it would be a shame not to become more familiar with. Here you’ll find the Sicilian puppet museum of eastern Sicily, an extraordinary testimonial of Sicily’s marionette theatre traditions whose roots date back to the mid 1800s and represent the epic, heroic and chivalrous spirit of the paladins of France (the medieval battles between the knights of Charlemagne and the Moors). Today the new generations of families that have dedicated their life to this old profession continue to hand down such traditions with passion and devotion by creating puppets based on the old methods and performance techniques. Every year Sortino is the site of the Marionette Theatre Festival with performances by some of the most important puppet companies.
Another cherished legacy is the old apiary and honey-making activities for which Sortino is proud to offer one of the best tasting honeys in the world. This is the site of the traditional apiary museum, “la Casa del fascitraru”, where visitors can taste many varieties of honey, including thyme, eucalyptus and orange blossom. Sortino is surrounded by the beautiful valley of the Anapo, a river that springs from Mount Lauro and flows into the sea at Siracusa. Over the centuries, the river has dug out spectacular canyons where nature has and continues to thrive. The Anapo valley encompasses the nature-archaeological site of Pantalica, the largest and most fascinating late Bronze Age necropolis of the Mediterranean basin (declared a World Heritage Site in 2005). This is where pre-Greek indigenous populations settled and the last settlements date back to the Byzantine period. The vestiges of this protohistoric city are the 5000 cave-like graves, while traces of the Byzantine period include the ruins of rocky villages and the prince’s palace. Pantalica is an extraordinary landscape whose original features have remained intact over time. Expert nature guides will help visitors discover all the wonders of these splendid sites.
