Beyond the Pelagie: The Aegadian Isles

They sit in a loose triangle off Trapani, close enough to reach in forty minutes by aliscafo, far enough to feel genuinely apart. The Egadi — Favignana, Levanzo, Marettimo — are technically the westernmost point of Sicily, which is itself already pushing toward Africa, and that geographical insistence gives them their character: the water is preternaturally clear, the wind is reliable, and the pace is several registers slower than the Sicilian mainland they face across a narrow channel.

All three share a ferry port in Trapani, and all three are served by Liberty Lines hydrofoils that run frequently enough in high season to make island-hopping genuinely feasible, and infrequently enough in winter to remind you that these are working communities, not theme parks. Come in June or early September and you'll find the connections good, the beaches uncrowded, and the alberghetti — never particularly numerous here — worth booking early regardless.

The largest of the three takes its nickname from the shape seen on any map: two wings spread from a narrow waist. It is flat enough to navigate by bicycle, and the bicycle rental shops near the port are an institution, their fleets of ancient three-speeds no deterrent to the island's most obvious pleasures. A day on Favignana is easily filled with the old Florio tuna works — the stabilimento, now a museum — and the extraordinary piscine, former tufa quarries filled by the sea, where locals and visitors swim in turquoise pools framed by pale stone walls. The quarried tufa built much of Trapani province; the voids it left behind are among the most unusual swimming spots in the Mediterranean.

Favignana's connection to tuna runs deep. The island was the centre of the mattanza, the ancient, ritualised bluefin tuna hunt that the Florio family industrialised in the nineteenth century and that finally fell silent in the early 2000s when stocks made it unsustainable. You can read the whole history in the Museo del Mare, and you can still eat tuna — preserved, grilled, dressed with capers and local oil — in practically every trattoria on the island. The capers, incidentally, are excellent: the soils and sun of the Sicilian islands produce them pungent and firm, and here they arrive pickled in salt rather than brine, as they should.

Seventeen minutes on the hydrofoil from Favignana, Levanzo is smaller, quieter and, for many visitors, the more surprising island. There is effectively one settlement — the port hamlet of the same name — a handful of places to eat, and not much else. This is precisely the point.

What Levanzo does have, in a cave above the western coastline, is the Grotta del Genovese: one of the most significant prehistoric art sites in Italy, containing both Palaeolithic engravings — oxen, deer, figures — and Neolithic painted silhouettes thought to be among the oldest in the Mediterranean. Access is controlled and guided, the numbers kept deliberately small, and the walk or boat ride to reach it is part of the experience. Visits run through a local custodian rather than a formal ticketing system; arrange in advance, in season.

The swimming at Levanzo is outstanding: small coves of cobalt and white stone, with underwater visibility that makes snorkelling feel almost absurd in its generosity.

The westernmost of the three, Marettimo sits beyond what feels like a perceptible horizon. It is the wildest — more vertical, more forested with Aleppo pine and Mediterranean scrub, criss-crossed by paths that reward the walker willing to climb. The village is tiny and genuinely quiet even in July. There are springs; there are Roman ruins; there is a Moorish-influenced castle, the Castello di Punta Troia, accessible on foot from the port along the northern coast.

Divers come to Marettimo for the caves and seamounts offshore, and the water here is arguably the clearest of the three islands — a claim Levanzo partisans will contest vigorously. The sea battle of the Aegadian Islands, fought in 241 BC, was the decisive naval engagement of the First Punic War, and its wreck field has yielded bronze rams and helmets now held partly in Marsala's Museo Baglio Anselmi.

Together, the three islands take less than a week to explore thoroughly and an afternoon to fall in love with. Come from Trapani, come early in the season, bring snorkelling kit and walking shoes. The hydrofoil back to the mainland always comes too soon.