KOLYMBETHRA GARDEN
It is a marvelous Sicilian garden, a small earthly paradise rich in water and bursting with fruit.
In this beloved place, which blends the past and the present, the garden, where the eternal beauty of creation can be admired, offers refuge to those seeking tranquility and well-being.
Calcarenite wall and rupestral vegetation
Monumental olive tree
Cave chapel
Detail of the historic and rural landscape
Scent of orange blossom
The Montana Farmhouse
Water: Kolymbethra's subterranean breath.
Today, the Kolymbethra is a verdant garden. It was created as an advanced hydraulic and engineering feat and entrusted to the architect Phaeax in the 5th century BC by the powerful tyrant Theron of Akragas. Among the aqueducts that have been identified, one still flows into the Kolymbethra. It is a living monument that has released water every day, all year round, for 2,500 years, to irrigate the garden through a system of “cunnutti” and “caseddri”. These are irrigation techniques that had their origins in Arab culture and tradition and which were subsequently imported into Sicily and passed down through the centuries. They are still employed today.
Prodigious example of Mediterranean maquis.
This is a historic, rural landscape of unique and exceptional value, with its scents and profound silence; a small earthly paradise rich in water and bursting with fruit. It is a marvelous Sicilian garden encompassing an extraordinary variety of shrubs typical of the Mediterranean scrub: centuries-old olive trees, almond trees, pistachio trees, a lush vegetable garden, and over more than six hundred citrus trees, some dating back to the 18th century.
