Stock Photography Fine Art photo prints at Traveller Dreams

>> Home > Sicily

Sicilian Nature

Countryside and Natural Landscape

Although the action of man has always had deleterious effects, Sicily is still beautiful to see.
Sicily has little flat land. The Tyrrhenian coastal belt together with the Ionian at the foot of the Peloritani has the most mountainous attractive scenery on the island. The mountains called the Peloritani, the Nebrodi and the Madonie are the continuation of the Calabrian Apennines. Hill crags are broken at intervals by little, fertile and irrigated alluvial plains, intensively cultivated and densely populated. The Nebrodi characterised by dense forests, fewer crops and very few villages, and the extremely picturesque Madonie, with karst flats and dolinas known as quarare.

Madonie mountains

have the most attractive and picturesque mountainous scenery

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

To the east, on the Ionian Coast separated by the famous Alcantara gorges, rises solitary Etna's giant cone, Europe's greatest active volcano and one of the biggest in the world, towering up just to the back of Taormina and forming the background to practically the whole of the Sicilian landscape. The plains and hills on Etna's slopes are full of citrus orchards, here called ‘gardens’.
Beyond Etna lies the Catania Plain, the largest in Sicily, formed from alluvial deposits left by the Simeto River and its tributaries, overlaid with volcanic terrain originating from Etna lava. The biggest citrus orchards are to be found here, planted by skilful Arabs that built precious irrigation systems enabling citrus fruit to be grown.

Mount Etna

solitary Etna's giant cone forming the background to practically the whole of the Sicilian landscape

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

Proceeding towards Ragusa a further line of low mountain chains crosses the island diagonally: the Erei - Iblei mountain groups. These are arid limestone terrain, called also "sulphur-bearing upland", with cities lay in a panoramic position. The Iblei Mountains are interesting for their magnificent deep river gorges carved out of the limestone rock and known locally as cave. The most important Pantalica and Cava d'lspica. Often the caves were prehistoric settlements and some were used as burial places, giving rise to famous necropolises.

Iblei Mountains

interesting for their magnificent deep river gorges carved out of the limestone rock

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

The landscape in the central-southern part of the island is more desolate. The colours of cereal crops predominate: green in winter and burnt yellow in the hot summer. This is the latifundium, or large estate system, typical landscape of the grain-farming-pastoral estate with its characteristic masseria rising in the middle of old fields and representing the sole form of scattered settlement. Due to the lack of springs and for safety considerations, agricultural workers and their families used to live in large villages, true "farm towns", often miles away from the workplace. Only the foreman and one or two steady farmhands lived in the masseria. Farms, bagli, noblemen's country residences and Baroque or Liberty-style villas are hidden among ‘enclosures’ of ancient olive groves.

Rural landscape

typical landscape of the grain-farming-pastoral estate with its characteristic masseria

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

Sicily stock photographs

There are no long rivers in Sicily. Most of them are fiumare (torrents) where the water often flows under the bed gravel, from time to time surfacing as springs. The principal rivers are the Simeto and Alcantara on the Ionian side, and the longer Salso. The Simeto has the most consistent water load, it rises in the Nebrodi and flows through the valley separating Etna from the other mountains. The Alcantara (the name in Arabic means ‘the bridge’), together with the Upper Simeto, completely isolates Etna.
The Lake Pergusa is one of the rare natural lakes in Sicily. It is here that, according to Diodorous Siculus, born in this region in 80 B.C., the god Pluto master of the underworld seized the lovely young Prosperine. When Cerere, her mother and goddess of the harvests, knew about the abduction of the daughter, she provoked famine and drought. Then Jupiter ordered to Pluto to return the young girl, but since she had eaten a grain of pomegranate, symbol of fidelity, she could not make return on the earth. Then Jupiter granted that Proserpina could spend two thirds of the year on the earth and one third with Pluto in the kingdom of the darkness. This myth symbolises the return each year of the spring but also of the conjugal unhappiness.

Pergusa Lake

where the Proserpina mith was born

This and more photographs can be found at:

Traveller Dreams

The natural vegetation in Sicily is rare, deforestation for agriculture and grazing started since prehistoric times and introduced plants (citruses, vines, palm-trees, prickly-pears, eucalyptus cone pines) give character to the landscape. This is truer for the Mediterranean vegetation along the entire Sicilian coastline where holydays houses and sea resorts buildings are blots on the landscape.

  Related Pages
  - Sicily - Art and Architecture
  - Sicilian Monuments - Palaces Castles and Villas
  - Sicilian Archaeological Sites
  - Sicily - Countryside and Natural Landscape
  - Sicily - The beaches, the sea and the islands
  - Sicily - Nature Parks and Reserves
  - Hiking and Walking in Sicily
  - Sicily - Popular Traditions

Architectural stock photography	Gallery of beach sea cost and villages pictures
Photo archaeology sites	Landscape stock photo gallery
Nature stock photography	Corsica stock photography and scenic picture
Cusco Peru Travel photos	Tunisia Travel pictures photos of Culture and Civilization
Mediterranean nature and landscape photos Gallery	Portugal images picture gallery Images of Lisbon Alentejo
High quality Italian Images of Lake Como	Images of Turkey Istanbul
Pictures of Spain and Andalucia photos	Sardinia Pictures
Gallery of Brittany France photos	Sicily picture photo gallery
Mountain Pictures	Trees stock photographs
Pictures of Venice Italy and its architecture	Photo of Croatia Split Dubrovnik

Stock Photography Online Digital Library

Stock Photography Online Digital Library of

Madonie mountains

Mount Etna

Iblei Mountains

Rural landscape

Pergusa Lake

Fine-art Print


- Posters & Prints - Stock Photos - Web Graphics -	Information \| Stock Photography \| Photo Prints \| Contact Us