Casalvecchio Siculo

Casalvecchio Siculo (Zip Code 98032) is 262 km. distant from Agrigento, 196 km. from Caltanissetta, 70 km. from Catania, 167 km. from Enna, 40 km. from Messina, which province it belongs to, 299 km. from Palermo, 174 km. from Ragusa, 128 km. from Siracusa, 398 km. from Trapani.

The municipality has 1.262 inhabitants and an area of 3.337 hectares for a density of population of 38 inhabitants per square kilometre. It rises on an internal hilly area and is 420 metres above sea-level.

The Town Hall is placed in piazza Municipio, phone: ++39 0942-761008 fax. ++39 0942-761008.

Main economic activities are agriculture and breeding. Typical agricultural products are olives, grapes, lemons, corn. Breedings present are cattle and sheep ones.

The original name of the small town was Palachorion, that in Greek-Byzantine means old countryhouse according to an Aragonese document of 1351. The name has changed into the present in Arabic period.

From the early of the Norman period until the XVIII century it has been under the jurisdiction of Savoca. It was a hamlet of the near S. Teresa di Riva from 1928 until 1939, then it became a self-governing commune.

The most interesting monuments are the Cathedral Church, the chiesa of S. Teodoro, the chiesa of SS. Pietro and Paolo of the Norman period.

The feast in honour of the patron S. Onofrio is very characteristic. It takes place on the secon sunday of September, and in this occasion a procession passes and it is also present the statue of a camel as a memorial to the camel on which Ruggero II entred as winner in Sicily in 1060.