Trapani salt flats

Trapani saline

By the 19th century, Sicilian sea salt was exported to European countries as far away as Norway and Russia but salt extraction was a technology known to the ancient Egyptians, and in Sicily dates at least from the time of the Greeks and Romans. It has flourished in the Trapani area unto the present day, not for a lack of salt mines on the island but because many cooks prefer sea salt. Conditions for the extraction are ideal here with a long season that’s both warm and dry; and lots of wind for both evaporation and power: the windmills were a medieval development making the work more efficient.

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