INTRODUCTION

Antica Trasversale Sicula is a 600-km long country trail cutting across Sicily from to the ancient Greek colony Kamarina in the South East to the Phoenician trading outpost on Mozia Island in the West.

Moved by an unconditional love for Sicily, the initiators designed a path through cultural traditions and natural monuments, allowing hikers to throw themselves into a maze of a history and passion, a spiritual journey along old abandoned railway lines, nature parks and UNESCO World Heritage sites.

The idea is based upon  Biagio Pace (1889-1955, an archaeologist and one of the founders of ancient Italian topography) and Giovanni Uggeri (a professor focusing focusing more specifically on Sicilian topograph ) who have identified a network of  cross-country trails dating back to at least the Greek period the Eastern Hellenic to the Western Phoenician end of the Island. This was a thousand-years old road network connecting  salt, wheat, oil, wine, honey and sulphur producers and users.

The network was reconstructed and walked by a group of archaeologists and passionate hikers who geo-referenced, with the support Sicilian  Tourist Observatory GIS Lav, making this one of the few of its kind connecting so many sites of valuable sites: Kamarina, Pantalica, Akrai, Palikè, Morgantina, Lake Pergusa and the Rocca of Cerere, Grotte della Gurfa,  Castronovo’s Kassar, Hippana, Entella, Mokarta, Segesta and Mozia. But not just that, Trasversale Sicula revealed to scholars and enthusiasts who have retraced all the complexities of its landscapes and the multiplicity of its dialects, languages ​​and traditions, the latter beautifully expressed in the variety and quality of its crafts and local cuisine.

SUSTAINABILITY

The trail was bought to a wider audience through the 1st International cross-country trail sponsored by Italian Ministry for Culture and the Sicilian Regional Tourism Department, which secured its economy sustainability. Hikers were asked to live their experience in a plastic free mode and to plant trees along the way the 2 year old trees donated by the Forestry Commission and held within cardboard cocoons, each featuring a 20 litres water reservoire designed by the Italian National Association for Naturalistic Engineering (AIPIN), as a tangible sign of fighting desertification. All types of plants from dwarf palms to oaks were given a new home on the grounds of the climate that would host them.

Social sustainability was automatic for all segments and ages of society took part. The total turnover in the 2nd international edition (2019) was 600 people, 80 of which completed the it from the beginninhg to the end. Half of them were from Sicily, while the remaining half were from Paraguay, Argentina, Canada, France, UK, and US. Walkers

More than one hundred endemic floral and fauna species were spotted in 271,005 hectares of protected nature in 8 natural parks.

TRADITION AND INNOVATION

The trail belongs to the long-established Mediterranean tradition of pensive walking, recorded from Plato to Benedectine monks, and hospitality, which has its first written expression in Homer’s poems for, just as 3,000 years, hikers do not rely on hotel accomodation, but rather favour local family accomodation, a deeper vehicle to getting to know any given location. Just like ancient wanderers, today’s Trasversali hold the owl, the symbol of Wisdom, Demeter and Kore, as their proptector.

VALUES AND DISCIPLINARIES

The values supported are the UN’s 2030 sustainable agenda goals, and the disciplinary is that of the Mediterranean Diet World Park, headquartered in Caltanissetta.

In so doing, Antica Trasversale Sicula aims to be the landscape integrity watchdog, both from a natural and social point of view a sit is hoped that the hikers’s economy may help mitigate negative demographics, spur civic activism, the creation of single associations and networks of associations. In its small way, it may also make a small economic contribution to locations normally off the beaten track and conventional coastline routes.

SCALABILITY AND RESILIENCE

There is no plan to scale up or replicate the trail elsewhere.

As to resilience, Antica Trasversale and other walks alike may well stimulate much needed human well-being via the bountiful enjoyment of artistic and natural resources, curtail digital consumption and – in some cases – prevent or cure work-related burn-out.