Favignana Tuff Quarries

The extraction of calcarenite has characterized the history of Favignana, especially the easternmost part of the island: this porous stone, typical of the land with calcareous and fossiliferous sandstone, is used for the production of ashlars in the shape of parallelepiped. The island has been excavated a lot and in an original and suggestive way, and its territory has been shaped by the wise hands of the “pirriatura“, the stone cutters. The activity over time began a slow and inexorable decline, due to competition and transport of materials from the island and today only one quarry remains active. There are two types of quarries: open pit and underground pit with galleries of pillars. In the disused hypogea the islanders have created gardens and vegetable gardens of admirable beauty, which are real natural greenhouses. Among these, the botanical garden “dell’impossibile”, which houses about 300 different species of Mediterranean flora within the landscape of tufa of the ancient mining system in use until the sixties of the twentieth century, accessible by guided tour by appointment.