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Gela

Gela offers a fascinating and well-run archaeology museum and the well-preserved remains of the city's ancient fortifications. Apart from those significant attractions – and a distinguished past as one of Sicily's great ancient cities – however, Gela is now a chaotic industrial centre with a reputation as a mafia hot spot. Little remains of its heyday as the economic engine room of the great Greek colony that eventually founded Akragas, Eraclea Minoa and Selinunte.

The city was sacked by Carthage in 405 BC and then razed by forces from Agrigento in 282 BC. More recently it was the first Italian town to be liberated by the Allies in WWII (in July 1943), but not before it had been bombed to rubble in the build-up to the invasion. Post-war development saw the construction of the vast petrochemical refineries that still blight the city along with swathes of cheap housing blocks.

Top attractions

These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Gela.

  • Museum

    Museo Archeologico

    This splendid archaeological museum offers insight into Gela's great artistic past. It contains artefacts from the city's ancient acropolis and is famed for its fine collection of red-and-black kraters: these terracotta vases, used to mix wine and water, were a local specialty between the 7th and 4th centuries BC, admired throughout the Greek world for their delicate designs and superb figurative work. Other treasures include a remarkable collection of 530 silver coins minted in Agrigento, Gela, Syracuse, Messina and Athens.

  • Ruins

    Greek Fortifications of Capo Soprano

    Built in 333 BC along Gela's western coastline at Capo Soprano by the tyrant of Syracuse, Timoleon, Gela's ancient Greek fortifications are remarkably well preserved, most likely the result of being covered by sand dunes for thousands of years before their discovery in 1948. The 8m-high walls were originally built to prevent huge amounts of sand being blown into the city by the blustery sea wind. Today authorities have planted trees to act as a buffer against the encroaching sand.

  • Ruins

    Acropoli

    Behind Gela's archaeological museum, you can see the scant remains of the city's ancient Greek acropolis. Adding little to the atmosphere are the belching chimneys of a nearby petrochemical plant.

  • Ruins

    Greek Baths

    Some 500m from the city walls, next to the hospital, are Sicily's only surviving Greek baths, which date from the 4th century BC.