Calatabiano Castle

 Maps

  Via Alcantara, 142 - Calatabiano (CT)
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The Castello di Calatabiano stands on a hill 220 meters above sea level. and dominates the mouth of the Alcantara and enjoys a breathtaking view of Taormina on one side and Mount Etna on the other. This ancient Byzantine fortress and later Arab-Norman castle boasts 2300 years of history and can be reached via a panoramic lift or a fascinating Naturalistic-Monumental path, the " Terra Vecchia path. ".
The complete perimeter of the surrounding walls remains with the remains of Guelph battlements. The main entrance to the castle consists of a portal with a pointed arch in lava ashlars and sandstone and is surmounted to by regent corbels. After the door, you enter a courtyard with a rectangular plan which opens onto various rooms built in different periods and on the right of which there are two cisterns with slits.
The oldest core, the first defensive core, occupies a small area which is accessed through a portal decorated with artistically worked lava ashlars and a ladder carved into the rock. This part of the castle included the keep, formed by a rectangular central body bordered at the ends by two semicircular towers and within which there is a cistern dug into the rock. In the central part of the keep there is a "pusteria", an opening that allowed the emergency exit on the steep slope of the mountain.
The part contained in the second wall is the fifteenth-century one built by the Cruyllas. One of the most evocative rooms of the castle is the Cruyllas Hall, located in the center of the courtyard and from the inside of which, through two windows, you can admire a beautiful view of the Alcantara valley. In the center of the hall there is an arch in white Taormina stone which divides the large room into two parts, on whose vaulted stone there is the coat of arms of the Cruyllas.
Among the rooms overlooking the courtyard there is a chapel to the west, in the apse of which sections of the original fresco with Christ Pantocrator are visible. The manor's water supply was entrusted to the collection of rainwater in the 6 cisterns scattered throughout the internal area.