Central citadel of the island and a very old town, much fought over by Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans. It was called ‘Holy City’ for its temples and religious cults. Livy pronounced it ‘absolutely impregnable’. Maybe for that reason the relics from different eras are prolific and largely intact. They are collected in the Archaeological Museum and the Alessi Museum. – the latter has beautiful gold coins and other precious items on display. Lake Pergusa, 7 km south with a holiday village on its banks, is unusual in having no inflow of water. It depends entirely on rain, a phenomenon hardly known in the interior of Sicily. It also turns red periodically at the ‘flowering’ of its invisible plankton.