Riserva Zingaro.com

Routes

Route 1 - Coastal

Mind route

Route: visitors centre - naturalistic museum - pic nic area - cala Capreria

The visitors centre (easy route) - length km 0,600 - Time about 4 hours

This route gives the chance to see a plastic model with the representation of all the reserve territory. Visitors can be guides through a virtual route into the reserve, by the view of slides and explanations supplied from highly characterised staff.

Visitors will find moreover a exhibition of the products and the objects that still today are produced in the Reserve through the use of vegetables fibres, they are worked from older craftsman and from the harvesting and transformation of the products of the cultivations existing in the territory; products realised with traditional and absolutely biological systems. Visitors can also visit the library and the "Herbarium" where there are all the vegetables species present in the "Zingaro" reserve.

Naturalistic Museum. Near the visitor centre there is the Naturalistic Museum, an ancient restructured building, that collecting all the faunal species present in the reserve. In the Museum there is also a section dedicated to the sea.

Pic Nic Area - The pic nic area is an zone of the reserve where you can find tables, benches and barbecue to cook what you prefer.

Cala Capreria - To a short distance from the over described structures you can reach a little cove with whitest gravel, and a marvellous sea with its beautiful colours.

EYES ROUTE

Route n° 1: main path close the sea, stop in Cala del Varo, Cala della Disa, Ethnographical museum, stable, Marine Activities museum. (medium difficulty route), length about 6km - time about 5 hours

Main Path. The Main Path travels over again what it would have been the tracing of the asphalted road that would have had to join together the communes of Castellammare del Golfo and S. Vito Lo Capo. This road don't was no more realized thanks to an imposing People's Movement that was opposed to the destruction of this splendid feature of coast and that it induced the government of the Region to institute the first Sicilian protected area.
Covering this path you meet the rock's pioneer vegetation, whole whit what it has become the symbol of the reserve, that is the splendid exemplary of "Dwarf Palm". You can see too the cultivations that in recent times have been resumed and that supply almonds with an hardest shell and olives with oil low rendered, but with a good smell and taste elsewhere unavailable.

Cala del Varo. First stop is in Cala del Varo, where you can drink water from the sources, that the Zingaro Staff offer you taken it from clay "giare" (jars).

Cala della Disa. Stop in Cala della Disa is a must, to admire the beautiful exemplary of " Dwarf Palm" that by now they have very little of dwarf. In fact caused by the continuous pruning, carried out for the use of the leaves, the plants have been raised, catching up also heights of five meters.

Ethnographical museum. Along the route you find the Ethnographical Museum where there are the traditional agricultural instruments; you can also see the craftsmen to work the vegetables fibers producing many different objects.

Stable. Whichever material, into the Zingaro Reserve can be transported only by animals; exactly are used mules and sometimes are used donkey of "pantesca" race, that until little time ago was considered extinct and that thanks to a recovery job of the Forest Company is returned to live again and to being used when it is not possible to introduce other means of transport.

The Marine Activities museum. In the Marine Activities Museum you can see pictures of the local marine species and the traditional equipments for fishing. There is also a miniature of the tunny-fishing net with its nets architecture that guide tunnys until the dead room, where they are harpooned.

Route n° 2: Marcato Ficara, Pianello, Monte Speziale, Borgo Cosenza, Tonnarella dell'Uzzo (medium difficulty route)

length about 8 km - time about 6 hours

Marcato Ficara. The "marcato" is a structure used like shelter for live-stocks and for the transformation of milk, in fact breeding is the first productive activity of the Zingaro Reserve. There are many of this Structure in the Zingaro.

The Pinello. is the sole coniferae artificial wood still existing in the Zingaro. It is composed by pine plants of "Aleppo", planted before of the reserve foundation.

Monte Speziale is a panoramic point from where you can admire a long part of the reserve territory and where there are some rare plants.

Borgo Cosenza. is an ancient peasant village where until the end of the 19th century have lived many families that realized a good economy, so they could stay without contact with inhabited centre for long periods. In recent years the old cultivations have been took again, in fact have been reconstructed the ancient orchards, the vineyard with the "inzolfa" and the traditional "cataratto"(kinds of grape).

Tonnarella dell'Uzzo is an ancient "malfaraggio" where was kept the equipment for the tunnys fishing. Today you find there some pictures of the local marine species and the traditional equipments for fishing. There is also a miniature of the tunny-fishing net with its nets architecture that guide tunnys until the dead room, where they are harpooned.

SENSES ROUTE

Necessary time: 5 hours.

It will not come covered a true route, but you will follow a route that don't following any paths traced from man bring to discover paths tracings from the nature in the centuries.

The visitors will take confidence with the sensory table on which they will find a written with the unusual one "is prayed to touch"; they will learn to recognize the more dangerous animal of the earth and will taste the best dishes of mother nature restaurant; they will be able to photograph the plants of the Zingaro without to use to the camera and will study the flow of the energy with the game of the sun. At the end of the route they will probably not have learned nobody of the names of the plants present in the Zingaro, but they will have learned to use the "sottoscopio" and the "catturaodori", and will have drunk the wine of the carob tree and tasted the honey of the bees.