What is Marsala known for?

Fortified wine invented in 1773 by John Woodhouse, aged in oak in the historic Florio, Pellegrino, Rallo and Donnafugata cellars in the city. Phoenician island in the Stagnone lagoon that founded Lilibeo and the port where Garibaldi landed with the Mille on 11 May 1860. Saline della Laguna along the Stagnone, with windmills and salt mounds shifting colour with the seasons, still worked by hand.

Marsala is a comune in the province of Trapani, Sicily region of Italy, about 123 kilometers from Palermo.

Sicily · Trapani

Marsala

Sicily's westernmost city, born from the Phoenician refugees of Mozia, where Garibaldi landed in 1860 and English merchants invented Marsala wine.

123 km / 76 mi

Nearest hub (Palermo)

79,809

Population

May–Oct

Best time to visit

Recognised as

Città del Vino

Why come

Marsala sits on the westernmost point of Sicily, at sea level on the strait facing Tunisia. The Phoenicians of Mozia, on the small island just off the Stagnone lagoon to the north, founded Lilibeo on the mainland after Dionysius of Syracuse razed Mozia in 397 BC; the modern city sits on that ground. The Arabs renamed it Marsa Ali or Marsa Allah, the harbor of God, in the ninth century. On 11 May 1860 Giuseppe Garibaldi landed at the port with the Mille and began the campaign that ended the Bourbon kingdom. Large-scale wine production began in 1773 when the English trader John Woodhouse added grape spirit to local wines to keep them through the sea voyage to England, and the fortified Marsala became a global product. The historic cellars (Florio, Pellegrino, Rallo, Donnafugata) still operate in the city. The Saline della Laguna and the Stagnone, with Mozia at its center, lie a few kilometers north along a low coastal road of windmills and salt mounds.

The slow-trip planner

Building a trip? Find where Marsala fits in a slow Italy circuit.

Answer five questions. We will shape a geographically coherent slow trip from the 1,000 Italian towns most travelers skip. Yours to save and share.

Plan your trip

Gallery

8 photos · scroll →

Known for

Parco archeologico di Lilibeo
Phoenician-Punic and Roman site at Capo Boeo on the western tip of the city, with the Baglio Anselmi museum and the third-century BC Punic warship.
Riserva dello Stagnone e Mozia
Two-thousand-hectare coastal lagoon with the island of Mozia at its center, holding the Phoenician walls and the Kothon harbor basin.
Saline della Laguna
Working salt pans along the Stagnone with Dutch-style windmills and pyramidal salt mounds, in production since Phoenician times.
Cantine Florio
Historic Marsala cellars founded in 1833, with oak vats and the original nineteenth-century baglio, open for tours and tastings.
Chiesa Madre di San Tommaso di Canterbury
Norman foundation rebuilt in the seventeenth century, dedicated to the English martyr Thomas Becket, on Piazza della Repubblica.
Museo degli Arazzi Fiamminghi
Eight sixteenth-century Flemish tapestries on the Jewish Wars of Vespasian, donated to the Chiesa Madre in the late sixteenth century.

When to visit

Best months · May–Oct

Best
Hot or crowded
Quiet
Mostly closed

May, June, September and October are the months for the Stagnone and the salt pans. July and August are hot and busy at Mozia, and the salt-pan reflections that give the lagoon its colour are best caught at sunset, when the temperature drops. November is the new wine on the Marsala cellars' floors. Winter on the western tip stays mild, in the low teens; the historic cellars, the Lilibeo park and the Chiesa Madre keep regular hours. Pink flamingos hold in the Stagnone almost year-round, with peak numbers between August and December.