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il Baglio
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Scopello is perhaps
the more evocative and colorful place of the entire gulf of Castellammare.
It is a small village risen at the end of the 18th century around
the "baglio", on a previous arab country house. In the low-lying
wonderful cove limited by the stacks and protected by old towers,
there is the "tonnara" (thunny-fishing structure), known
sine a long time ago (it is mentioned in documents of the year 1200);
it has worked until few years ago, together with the"baglio",
the buildings and the warehouses. You can reach it from Castellammare
driving through the state street 187 in the direction of Trapani,
deviating at Km 32.4, passing the bay of Guidaloca on which there
is a 16th century cylindrical tower. The name of Scopello probably
derives from the Greek "scopelos" (rock), from the Latin
"scopellum" (rock) and from the arab "iscubul iactus"
(high rock). |
| It has been inhabited since
the prehistoric period (finds discovered in the caves of the inland
document the human presence, starting from the palaeolithic period),
the zone has been known since ancient times because of the abundance
of tunnys, which were fished in its sea, so much that the Greeks called
it "Cetaria", that means "earth of the tunnys".
The Arabs founded there a country house, which was inhabited by fishermen
and shepherds and, in 1235, Frederic II the Swabian, after having
annexed it with all the feud to the city Mounte San Giuliano, granted
the property to a group of settlers of Piacenza, who soon left because
of the continuous piratic incursions. In those centuries, in fact,
the pirates who infested the low Mediterranean sea, used the bay of
Scopello as a base for their raids: mooring the ships behind the stacks,
they were practically invisible from the open sea. |
| The towers
give to the landscape a mystery halo and a fascinating atmosphere,
which mixes together nature and history. They go back to different
ages and they were part of a system of defense and communication
distributed along all the perimeter of the Sicily: communicating
among themselves through the fire, by night and with the smoke
during the day, all the island could be informed in very little
time of every military new. The oldest, probably built up by
the Arabs to protect the "tonnara", is the one that
rises on the stack that was once connected to the mainland,
which could be approached through a bridge or probably a scale
that was carved in the rock itself The Doria tower, from the
name of the Spanish nobleman who let it build on the terrace
that faces the bay, goes back to the XVII century. Another one,
the Bennistra tower, is the one built in the XV century on the
top of a mount in the south of the "baglio" and that
dominates from its exceptional point of observation the entire
gulf of Castellammare. |
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Il
Baglio
Into the Town of Scopello there is the famous "Baglio" and
there you can find some of typical shops, bar, a restaurant and a
bank, infact all the main activities of Scopello are carry-on into
this "Baglio".
In sping the town is full of turist attract from the joyful atmosphere
that you find in the baglio. In winter the town change in a paradise
of peace and calm. In Scopello you find different bars (were you can
eat the speciality food of the place as "Li Cassateddi",
"La Pignolata" e "La Cassata Siciliana"), locali
typical restaurants (where you can eat " Il Pani Cunsato"),
a post office, a first-aid and a bank with bancomat. Naturally don't
lack souvenir shops.
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Scopello 
