The road from Trapani to Marsala, skirting the lagoon that is home to Mozia, is lined with salt pans that offer a beautiful view: the sheets of water divided by thin strips of land form an irregular, multicolored checkerboard. At times the silhouette of a windmill appears in the middle, a reminder of the time when it was one of the main tools for pumping water and grinding salt. The spectacle is even more striking in the summer, at harvest time, when the pinkish hues of the water in the various basins intensify and the innermost, now drained basins shimmer in the sun.
An ancient history – The exploitation of the coastal area between Trapani and Marsala dates back to the time of the Phoenicians who, noticing the extremely favorable conditions, planted tanks there to extract salt, which was then exported throughout the Mediterranean basin. From here began the systematic exploitation of this portion of land, bathed by shallow waters and characterized by often high temperatures and climatic conditions (first and foremost the wind that favors evaporation) particularly suitable for the extraction of this precious element, indispensable to human life.
