Featured events in Sicilia
 | 2024-11-17 - The Maratona di Palermo will be held in Palermo, on the island of Sicily. Palermo was founded in 734 bC by the Phoenicians as Ziz ("flower"). Its strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean brought waves of invaders including Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Saracen Arabs, Normans, Swabians, French and Spanish, resulting in a vast range of architectural styles, in a fusion of ingredients used in many local dishes, and in many place names which are obviously not of Italian origin. www.palermomaratona.it |
 | 2024-07-14 - The Trail dei Nebrodi, one of the events of the Circuito Ecotrail Sicilia, held in Cesarò near Messina, is not for the faint of heart. It is a partially self-sufficient ultramarathon in the pristine environment of the Parco dei Nebrodi on the Sicilian Apennines, the largest protected natural area of the island. Along the 65k course (but there is also a shorter 20k trail) participants are required to bring their own emergency supply, leave no trace, pick up their trash (or be disqualified) and run with no iPods or music players of any sort. www.ecotrailsicilia.it |
 | 2024-07-08 - Take a week off and enjoy the "Black Pearl" of the Tyrrhenian Sea, the island of Ustica off the coasts of Sicily. Populated at least since about 1500 bC by the Phoenicians, the island is today home to only a thousand people, and they are welcoming the participants to the annual Giro podistico a tappe dell'isola di Ustica. This is a week-lasting relay event, with a couple of rest days in between daily runs spawning from 7k to 10k in lenght. www.usticatour.it |
 | 2024-07-07 - The Barocco Race, a 24k event held in Ragusa Ibla is the perfect opportunity to visit the fine Sicilian Baroque architecture, as the course winds through the "pearls" of the Val di Noto: Ragusa, Modica, and Scicli where the finish line is placed. These towns are inscribed in the Unesco World Heritage List as "representing the culmination and final flowering of Baroque art in Europe". The settlements of the Val di Noto were mostly destroyed by an earthquake in 1693. The rulers of the time, the kings of Spain, granted the nobleman Giuseppe Lanza special authority to redesign the damaged towns, which he did in a Baroque and Renaissance style. www.maratonadiragusa.com |
 | 2024-04-28 - Marsala is more than just a veal sauce. The Maratonina del vino (Wine Half Marathon) in Marsala, a city near Trapani, will offer foreign runners the opportunity to visit the place where it all began: thanks to the English trader John Woodhouse who discovered it would last on long ocean voyages, the renown Marsala wine - fortified like Port, Madeira and Sherry - became famous first in England and then worldwide. Golden, amber, ruby - these are some of the different dry or sweet varieties of Marsala wine you can enjoy drinking after the run. www.asdmarsaladoc.jimdo.com |
 | 2024-04-14 - Listed as a World Heritage Site, the Greek temples in the valley near Agrigento, in Sicily, are the largest and best-preserved ancient Greek buildings outside of Greece itself. The half marathon Mezza maratona della concordia, that here is held, is a fantastic occasion to run on the footsteps of one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia during the golden age of Ancient Greece. www.gsvalledeitempli.it |
 | 2024-01-21 - The Maratona di Ragusa will be held in Ragusa, on the island of Sicily. The city is built on a wide limestone hill between two deep valleys, Cava San Leonardo and Cava Santa Domenica. Together with seven other cities in the Val di Noto, it is listed among the Unesco World Heritage Sites. Both the full and the half marathon are scheduled to start around 8 in the morning. www.maratonadiragusa.com |
 | 2023-11-05 - Running at the feet of the Etna volcano, the Sotto il vulcano trail in Calatabiano is faithful to its title, offering a 26k trail course with 1.2k elevation in the Etna and Alcantara Park. Mount Etna is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is in an almost constant state of activity. The fertile volcanic soils support extensive agriculture, with vineyards and orchards spread across the lower slopes of the mountain and the broad plain of Catania to the south. Mount Etna has been designated a Decade Volcano by the United Nations, and is on the list of the Unesco World Heritage Sites. www.trailsiciliachallenge.it |
 | 2023-08-06 - Dedicated to Pheidippides, said to have run from Marathon to Athens to deliver news of the military victory against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon, the Maratona alla Filippide starts at 4:30 in the morning from Chiaramonte Gulfi, near Ragusa, in Sicily. Its peculiarity is that participants are not allowed to check watches, but have to run instead trusting their inner clocks like Philippides did in ancient times. As a bonus, at least for the Italians, the race ends in Punta Secca, in front of the house of the inspector Montalbano, the fictional detective protagonist of a popular Italian television series based on the novels of Andrea Camilleri. www.maratonadiragusa.com/la-filippide |
 | 2022-07-03 - Here is an offer you can't refuse - running with the Godfather. The town of Savoca near Messina in Sicily - hosting the Trofeo podistico città di Savoca, a mountain race featuring a 8.25k distance - was the location for the scenes set in Corleone of Coppola's "The Godfather". Bar Vitelli in Savoca, which is still a functioning establishment, was featured in the motion picture as the place where Michael Corleone asked Apollonia's father to meet his daughter. Despite years since its making, "The Godfather" continues to appeal for its cultural value as an iconic movie that portrays not only the Italian culture but also the struggles for the American Dream. Now leave the gun and take your running shoes. www.polisportivaodysseus.com |
 | 2020-02-23 - Be close to where Italian history happened when running the Trofeo podistico garibaldino, held in the Sicilian city of Marsala, landing of the "Spedizione dei Mille". This was an expedition that happened during the Risorgimento period - a corps of volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi (one of the "four fathers of the Nation") sailed from Quarto, near Genoa, and landed in Marsala on May 11, 1860. The project was an ambitious and risky venture aiming to conquer, with a thousand men, a kingdom with a larger regular army and a more powerful navy. It was a success, and the last territorial conquest needed for the creation of the Kingdom of Italy one year later. www.asdmarsaladoc.jimdo.com |
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