Out on something of a limb, TRÁPANI is an attractive enough town, though with little to keep you more than a day or two - more a stopover, perhaps, en route to the offshore Égadi Islands or inland to Érice . A rich trading centre throughout the early Middle Ages, halfway point for Tunis and Africa, Trápani has suffered years of decline since then, and today suffers from its remote position on Sicily's western tip, despite the revitalization of the huge salt pans to the south of town. Beyond the gridded streets of modern Trápani, however, its old centre still retains a busy feel, and there are a couple of museums worth checking out.
The Town
Trápani's old town , broadly speaking the area west of the train station, sports a mix of often incongruous architectural styles, something that harks back to Trápani's past as a complex medieval Mediterranean trading centre. It's particularly true of the medieval Jewish quarter, a wedge of hairline streets and alleys that holds one of the city's most characteristic buildings, the Palazzo della Giudecca on Via Giudecca - sixteenth-century, with a stone-studded tower and finely wrought Spanish-style Plateresque windows. Just up from here, Trápani is at its most engaging, Corso Italia preceding a confused set of three piazzas, enlivened by their surrounding churches: one doorway of the sixteenth-century Chiesa di Santa Maria di Gesù (Via San Pietro) is defiantly Renaissance in execution, and further up, on Piazzetta Saturno, the church of Sant'Agostino is even earlier, fourteenth-century and retaining a Gothic portal and delicate rose window.
Off the Piazzetta, Via Torrearsa neatly splits the old town. West of here Trápani's layout becomes more regularly planned, while the main drag and shopping street, the elegant Corso Vittorio Emanuele , changes name to Via Carolina and then Via Torre di Ligny as it runs towards the Torre di Ligny - utmost point of the scimitar of land that holds the old town. The squat tower hides Trápani's Museo Civico di Preistoria (Mon-Sat 9am-12.30pm & 4-7.30pm; reduced hours in winter; L3000/?1.55), an archeological collection of local finds, worth an hour or so, and the water here is clean enough should you want to swim off the rocks. Finish off your circuit at the daily market , at the northern end of Via Torrearsa - fish, fruit and veg sold from the arcaded Piazza Mercato di Pesce, and with several lively bars in the area.
Celebrations and processions at Easter in Trápani are given added piquancy by the carriage around town on Good Friday of the Misteri , a group of life-sized eighteenth-century wooden figures representing scenes from the Passion. At other times they are on display in the exuberantly sculpted Chiesa del Purgatorio (daily 4-6.30pm, plus Lent daily 10am-noon & 4-7pm; free), on Via Domenico Giglio, near the junction with Via Francesco d'Assisi.
Except on arrival, you hardly need to set foot in the newer parts of the city. The only incentive is the interesting Museo Nazionale Pepoli (Mon-Sat 9am-1.30pm, Sun 9am-12.30pm; L5000/?2.58), a good three-kilometre bus ride away in the drab heart of modern Trápani: take bus #24, #25 or #30 from Corso Vittorio Emanuele, Via Libertà or Via Garibaldi, and get off at the garden outside the Santuario Santissima Annunziata, the fourteenth-century convent which houses the museum. Approached through bird-filled cloisters, the collection includes a bit of everything, from Gagini statuary and local archeological finds to delicate seventeenth-century coral craftwork, some nice prints and drawings, and a grim wooden guillotine of 1789.
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