This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)

In the province of Siracusa, there’s a farm stay facility surrounded by the remains of some Greek settlements and citrus gardens typical of the Catania plain: it’s known as “Casa dello Scirocco” (“The House of Sirocco”). The Terias River used to flow here, used by boats sailing from the sea to the city of Lentini – one of the first Greek colonies in Sicily.

After the Greeks, the Arabs arrived and introduced their love for coolness and shade. In addition to the wind towers and the painstakingly channelled water, the so-called “Scirocco room” was usually added to their abodes: a room created for protecting themselves from the African wind in the hot Sicilian summers. Basically, they were simple “caves”, buildings or rooms with very thick walls and no windows, thus providing for a cool inner to escape the outside heat.
In 1707, the fiefdom where the farm stay facility stands today was acquired by Baron Fuccio Corbino, who chose a cave and turned it into a private garçonnière, with fountains and waterfalls fed by a natural spring. The actual building was later buried, to plant a citrus garden but, in 1987 the Baroness La Rocca di S. Silvestro (the new owner of the garden), wanted to bring some extra light the house and transformed it into a farmhouse. The latter is currently managed by the local Superintendency for Cultural Heritage.

THE HOUSE TODAY

Casa dello Scirocco, plunged into the citrus garden, is still furnished according to the original XVIII-century style and cooled in summer by an ingenious system that takes the spring water and channels it to the masonry walls.

The main rural house is surrounded by other small buildings scattered standing inside the citrus grove as well and built like the typical Sicilian “baglio”: they feature a central courtyard and some caves converted into small rooms – they’re covered only with a veil of plaster to preserve the evocative visual effect of the naked rock.

Among the local facilities, there is a restaurant inside the cave, a swimming pool, some table-tennis areas, a football pitch for children, a bowling alley, a large play area, and several rides among the citrus groves. Next to this area, there is the Museum of Peasant Civilization, which exhibits the agricultural tools used before modern technology.

Worth tasting:

Casa dello Scirocco offers typical Sicilian delights, including orange blossom honey, jams, orange fruits and much more.

This post is also available in: Italiano (Italian)