Caltavuturo

Caltavuturo is a village of 3,323 people on the western side of the Madonie Park (Parco delle Madonie), 631 metres above sea level, in the province of Palermo. It sits below the Rocca di Sciara, a limestone wall 1,081 metres high, and above its houses lie the ruins of Terravecchia, the medieval village abandoned in the sixteenth century. Palermo is about 76 km away, an hour and twenty minutes by car.

You come here to walk among ruins and rocks without the crowds. Terravecchia, the Rocca di Sciara and the Gole di Gazzara are a few minutes from the centre, and the village has churches with sculptures by the Gagini school and a town museum with Sicilian puppets.

Caltavuturo at a glance

The key facts, with sources listed at the bottom of the page.

Where	Western side of the Madonie Park, Imera valley
Altitude	631 m at the town hall (ISTAT)
Population	3,323 (ISTAT estimate, 1 January 2026)
Area	about 98 km²
From Palermo	76 km, about 1 h 20 by car
Patron saint	Maria Santissima del Soccorso
Don’t miss	Terravecchia, Rocca di Sciara, Gole di Gazzara, town museum

A short history

The name comes from the Arabic qal’at, fortress. Some historians say it means the castle of Abi Tur, after a Muslim commander who fought here during the conquest of Sicily. Others read it as the Rock of the Vulture, from the Sicilian vuturu: the town coat of arms shows a tower with a vulture perched on it.

The first settlement stood on the Terravecchia outcrop, probably as early as the Byzantine period. Under the Normans the village belonged to the family of Count Roger, under the Swabians to the Ventimiglia. In 1550 part of the population moved outside the walls and started the village you see today.

There is a darker page too. On 20 January 1893, during the Fasci siciliani movement, 500 farm workers symbolically occupied some land: soldiers and carabinieri dispersed them and thirteen protesters were killed.

Things to see in Caltavuturo

Terravecchia, the abandoned village

On the limestone outcrop above the houses are the remains of the oldest settlement. The castle dates from the Norman period: built for defence, it became a lordly residence in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Next to it stand the church of San Bartolomeo with its bell tower and the dammusi, large half-underground rooms probably used as storerooms.

Lower down, on a cliff, is the Casale church, built around 1200. Only the apse and the line of one wall survive. Closed to worship in the early twentieth century, it was used for mass burials during the Spanish flu of 1918.

The Rocca di Sciara

This is the mountain that closes the village to the south, 1,081 metres high. The name is a Sicilian word for a steep, crumbling slope, although most of the mountain is a solid block of grey limestone. A small path leads to the top, where the ruins of the church of San Nicola stand. The almost vertical face above the houses is used for climbing.

The Mannari

At the foot of Terravecchia there is an old quarter of dry-stone sheepfolds, the mannari. They tell of centuries of shepherding, and some are still used for animals.

The churches in the centre

The Chiesa Madre dei Santi Pietro e Paolo has three naves and a neoclassical facade. Inside are a sixteenth-century marble tabernacle of the Gagini school, an Adoration of the Magi of the Flemish school, a Madonna and Child known as the Madonna della Neve, attributed to Francesco Laurana, and a gilded seventeenth-century organ by Antonio La Valle.

The church of Santa Maria di Gesù, known as the Convent church, dates from the early 1600s. It holds a wooden crucifix carved by friar Umile da Petralia between 1625 and 1626 and a Visitation attributed to the Messina painter Giovan Battista Quagliata.

The church of San Giovanni Battista, known as the Collegio, is linked to the Augustinians, recorded in Caltavuturo from 1433. Here the statue of the Madonna del Soccorso, from 1880, is venerated. The church of Santa Maria la Nova, the Badia, was rebuilt in 1697 with eighteenth-century stucco work and holds a Madonna delle Grazie of the Gagini school.

The Museo civico G. Guarnieri

The town museum is in the former convent of San Francesco, next to Santa Maria di Gesù, at Piazza San Francesco 3. Opened in 2007, it has an archaeology section, a collection of Sicilian puppets, local minerals and sacred art. According to the town council website it is open Monday to Friday, 8:30 to 13:00.

The Gole di Gazzara and the landscape around

Caltavuturo’s stream flows down towards the Imera, and in the Gazzara area it has cut the rock in two, separating the hill of Breo from Cozzo Rosso. Two old water mills survive along the gorge. On the Cozzo Rosso face the Park authority counts about 50 climbing routes.

If you like rock-top villages, Sclafani Bagni, the walled village on a spur, is about ten kilometres away, and Scillato, with its springs and mills, about eight.

Things to do in and around Caltavuturo

• Walking: Terravecchia and the Rocca di Sciara start from the village. More routes are on the page about trails near Caltavuturo.
• Climbing: on the face of the Rocca or at the Gole di Gazzara.
• Running: in August there is the Trail della Luna, with a night stage on the paths above the village.
• Nearby villages: Polizzi Generosa is about 25 km away, off the same A19 exit.

For more ideas see things to do in Caltavuturo.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the best months for walking and climbing: in summer the rock gets very hot. August is the month of festivals, with the Folklore Festival and the Trail della Luna. In winter the village is quiet, and the snow, when it falls, stays higher up towards Piano Battaglia. Before you go, check the weather in Caltavuturo.

How to get to Caltavuturo

By car, take the A19 Palermo-Catania motorway, leave at Scillato and drive up the SP24. The distances below are calculated on OpenStreetMap and are approximate.

From	Distance	Driving time
Palermo	76 km	about 1 h 20
Cefalù	48 km	about 1 h
Catania	139 km	about 1 h 50
Sclafani Bagni	10 km	about 15 min
Polizzi Generosa	25 km	about 25 min

We have not found official, up-to-date bus timetables for Caltavuturo, so for now we recommend a car. Roadworks and closures are on the page about Madonie roads. For all roads and connections there is the guide on how to get to the Madonie.

What to eat in Caltavuturo

The star of the local kitchen is the ferla mushroom, a kind of pleurotus known elsewhere as cardoncello. The village even has a festival for it, the Fungo Ferla Fest. The farmland around produces organic apples (gala, fuji and golden) and honey from chestnut, sulla, eucalyptus, citrus and wildflowers.

For other local mushrooms, see our guide to Madonie mushrooms; for everything else, our guide to Madonie food.

Festivals and events

• International Folklore Festival, around 15 August: groups from several countries, organised by the Gazzara folk group. Festival page.
• Trail della Luna, one weekend in August: a trail race with a night stage, plus walks for everyone.
• Feast of Maria Santissima del Soccorso, the patron saint: the cult arrived with the Augustinians in the mid-fifteenth century.

All dates are on the page about events in Caltavuturo.

Where to stay and where to eat

Caltavuturo has few beds, mostly in bed and breakfasts. You will find the ones we know in where to stay in Caltavuturo and the places to eat in where to eat in Caltavuturo. For more choice, Polizzi Generosa and Cefalù are the most convenient bases.