Madonie Delights and Gastronomy Experience from Cefalù

Today you are greeted at Cefalù hotel and driven to Madonie Mountains to immerse yourself into Sicilian countryside and local traditions.

In the Madonie Park, Manna falls from Ash Trees: from Exodus to Easter – The Manna, the bread of life.

Upon arrival meet our Manna Expert Team at his own land and you will see how traditions are not only a part of the past but are still a lifestyle. You will discover with him the traditional cultures, medical herbals, edible plants and a demonstration of the production of ash’s Manna.

Manna is the solidified sugary sap that flows from incisions made on the trunk and main branches of several species of the genus Fraxinus in the summertime. Manna is a sugary exudate consisting mainly of mannite, organic acids, water, glucose, fructose, mucilage, resins and nitrogen compounds.

The Manna, considered “The nectar of the Gods”, is the white gold of the Madonie. It is a crystallized and sugary sap that is extracted from the spring season from the Ash tree, today Slow Food Presidium. This ash sap, with many properties, is collected exclusively in the countrysides of Castelbuono.

Lunch in a local farmhouse.

Then this afternoon a short drive takes us to Castelbuono, a charming small medieval village with a delightful, still well preserved old town that captivates you from the very first moment. The town develops around the castle of Ventimiglia, near a Byzantine hamlet called Ypsigro.

Walking through its narrow streets, is like entering another dimension, it’s like seeing a parade of knights and beautiful ladies wearing rustling brocade clothes and complicated hairstyles.

In conclusion we later drive you back to Cefalù.