The project
About us: an independent guide to the Madonie
lemadonie.it is an independent guide to the Madonie, the mountains of Sicily between Cefalù and the Petralias. It is run by the Redazione Le Madonie, the editorial team, and it is not the website of the Madonie Park Authority (Ente Parco delle Madonie) or of any town council. You will find villages, trails, events, places to stay and eat, mountain weather and roads, in Italian, English, Spanish, French and German.
Page updated on 19 October 2026
What is lemadonie.it?
A guide for planning a day out or a holiday in the Madonie, the mountain range of northern Sicily that rises behind Cefalù. It brings together what is usually scattered across town council websites, social media pages, posters and forums.
Every page starts from a practical question. Where can I sleep near Piano Battaglia? What will the weather be like tomorrow at 1,600 metres? When is the food festival in Polizzi Generosa? Which trail works with children?
How is it related to the Madonie Park Authority?
It isn’t. lemadonie.it is not the website of the Madonie Park Authority or of a town council, and it does not speak for any public body. We use their websites as sources, with a link to the page each piece of information comes from.
For permits, park rules and official notices, always check the Park Authority’s own site: parcodellemadonie.it.
Right now the site has no advertising and no paid listings. Hotels and restaurants are in the guide because they are mapped on OpenStreetMap, events because they have an official source.
Who is the guide for?
- People on holiday in Sicily who want a day in the mountains from Cefalù or Palermo.
- Walkers looking for the right trail, with the exact starting point and the mountain weather.
- Families looking for the nearest snow in winter, at Piano Battaglia.
- Anyone following the patron saint days, food festivals and music festivals of the villages.
- People from the Madonie, or who come back every summer, and want an up-to-date calendar.
- Visitors from abroad: the main pages are translated into four languages.
What’s in the guide?
- Villages: one page per village, with pages on things to do, where to stay, where to eat, events and trails.
- Trails: pages with the CAI difficulty grade, approximate distance and time, starting point and seasons. The GPS track and technical details are on sentierisiciliani.it, which every trail page links to.
- Events: food festivals, religious feasts, concerts and festivals, with dates checked against official sources.
- Where to stay and where to eat: hotels, B&Bs, farm stays, mountain huts, restaurants and trattorias from OpenStreetMap, rebuilt every week.
- Mountain weather: hour-by-hour forecasts for villages and peaks, with climate averages.
- Snow and roads: ski slopes and snowshoeing at Piano Battaglia, winter driving, closure notices with source and date.
- Nature, food, culture and things to do: the topic guides.
- Itineraries, magazine and map to put your trip together.
Who writes the pages?
The Redazione Le Madonie. Much of the research, writing and translation is done by an artificial intelligence assistant, working within rules we wrote: every piece of information needs a source checked on the same day, or it doesn’t get published.
How this works, which sources we use and where the method falls short is explained in How we work.
How do I get in touch?
Write to info@lemadonie.it. The Contact page explains what to write to us about; to add an event or fix a mistake, go to Report an event or an error. How we handle data is explained in Privacy and cookies.
Frequently asked questions
- Is lemadonie.it the official website of the Madonie Park?
- The official website of the Madonie Park Authority is parcodellemadonie.it. lemadonie.it is an independent guide run by the Redazione Le Madonie: it uses data published by the Park Authority, the town councils and event organisers as sources, but it does not speak for any public body. For permits, rules and official notices, the Park Authority's website always prevails.
- How much does it cost to use the guide?
- Nothing. You can read every page without signing up or paying, and the site uses no profiling cookies. Right now there is no advertising and there are no paid listings: hotels, B&Bs and restaurants appear because they are mapped on OpenStreetMap, not because they paid to be included.
- Which languages is lemadonie.it available in?
- Italian, English, Spanish, French and German. The source text is always the Italian one; the other versions are translated with the help of artificial intelligence and carry the same data and the same sources. A page appears in a language only once its translation is ready, so some sections reach Italian readers first.
- How often is the guide updated?
- A new magazine article comes out every day, and weather forecasts and road notices are refreshed daily. Every Monday we recheck the events of the following eight weeks against official sources and rebuild the hotel and restaurant listings from OpenStreetMap. Each page shows the date of its last update.
- Can I suggest an event or a place to add?
- Write to info@lemadonie.it with a link to the official source: the town council or organiser's page, the poster, the property's own website. We only publish what we can check on a source anyone can open. The full instructions, with the list of what to send, are on the Report an event or an error page.