6 Best Sights in Marsala, Sicily

Founded and still run by the Rallo family, whose involvement in wine production dates from 1851, the Donnafugata Winery is open for tastings and tours of its cantina (wine cellar); reservations are required and can be made online or by phone. It's an interesting look at the wine-making process in Sicily, and it ends with a sampling of several whites and reds, an optional food pairing, and a chance to buy a bottle. Don't miss the delicious, full-bodied red Mille e Una Notte, and the famous Ben Ryè Passito di Pantelleria, a sweet dessert wine made from dried grapes.

Driving along the flat and winding coast road north of Marsala, you'll soon come across the extraordinary series of salt pans glistening in the shallows of Sicily's largest lagoon, the Stagnone di Marsala. The shallow depth of the lagoon, ranging from 2 to 6 feet, has made it perfect for the production of salt, and it has been put to this purpose since Phoenician times. The sheer flatness of the scene is varied only by the conical heaps of salt and a scattering of the disused windmills once used to supply power. The scene is still and quiet most of the time, but you'll sometimes see pockets of activity, with full wheelbarrows of salt being hauled to the conveyor belts that create the mounds. The stacks of earthenware tiles you'll see everywhere are used to weigh down the salt to prevent it being from blown away by gusts of wind. It's an extremely photogenic tableau, with the light changing through the day, the occasional presence of spindly pink flamingos in the lagoon, and Mozia and the Egadi archipelago looming through the haze. The narrow coastal road is one-way for much of its length, and the cycle track running alongside it enables the area to be comfortably toured on two wheels.

There's a small museum dedicated to the salt extraction industry in a restored windmill at the Ettore e Infersa embarcation point, where souvenir samples of salt can be purchased. You'll also find the Mamma Caura bar-restaurant here ( www.seisaline.it  Closed Tues. Oct.–May), with outdoor tables and a rooftop terrace.

A sense of Marsala's past as a Carthaginian stronghold is captured by the well-preserved Punic warship displayed in this museum, along with some of the amphorae and other artifacts recovered from the wreck. The vessel, which was probably sunk during the great sea battle that ended the First Punic War in 241 BC, was dredged up from the mud near the Egadi Islands in the 1970s. There's also a good display of maritime and archaeological finds, as well as some Roman ruins with mosaics just beyond the museum's doors. A combined ticket allows you to take in the rather sparse archaeological area behind the museum, too.

A former Benedictine monastery near Piazza Repubblica is now the home of the Complesso Monumentale di San Pietro, a series of exhibition and conference rooms that include a collection of items relating to Giuseppe Garibaldi, the flamboyant hero of Italy's 19th-century war of independence. The resistance leader's name is ubiquitous in Marsala, for it was here that he disembarked his army of one thousand "red shirts" to battle against the Bourbons, a struggle that eventually led to a unified and independent Italy. Two rooms—including the monastery's former refectory—display guns, swords, busts, paintings, photographs, and uniforms from the campaign, including examples of the famous red shirts worn by Garibaldi's fiercely loyal followers. A box in the center of the room holds the guerrilla general's own pistol.

Other parts of the museum complex hold archaeological fragments from Roman hypogea and necropolis in the area as well as traditional masks and costumes worn in Marsala's Easter Thursday procession. The wide central courtyard is the venue for concerts and open-air movies in the summer.

Arranged in a series of rooms around the cobbled courtyard of the 18th-century Palazzo Fici, this museum in the old center opened in 2024 to showcase the Marsala wine for which the town is famous. It also chronicles the development of wine production in the region generally, from its Phoenician beginnings to the present, in the process providing a good summary of the history of the town itself. It's worth pausing in the first rooms to view the subtitled videos, before moving on to rooms that cover the terrain and manufacture of Marsala wine, focusing on the first British exporters—Woodhouse, Ingham, and Whitaker—and the Italian wine dynasties that succeeded them, notably the Florios.

Dedicated to Thomas à Becket, the English saint famously martyred after provoking the fury of Henry II, Marsala's imposing Duomo is located in the heart of the old town, dominating a stately piazza that is also flanked by the 18th-century town hall. The church's grand Baroque facade is matched by its spacious and airy interior. A painting behind the altar depicts the murder of St. Thomas, while chapels on either side of the nave contain much work by Sicily's prolific Gagini family of sculptors.