THE ROCK SALT MINE AND THE CATHEDRAL OF SALT
Approximately 2.5 Km from Realmonte, you can visit the rock salt mine that, together with the mine of Racalmuto and that of Petralia Soprana, is one of three Sicilian rock salt mines still active. The mine is renowned for the quality of the mineral extracted from it: an excellent cooking salt, kainite, and other potassium salts. The length of its multi-storey tunnels, which extend underground about 25 km crossing the territories of Siculiana and Raffadali, is impressive. To make the view of the mine even more suggestive, it is the presence inside of the “Cathedral of Salt”, a church that is one of its kind. Among the works of major interest, we mention the altar, sculpted in a big block of salt; the ambo, also sculpted in a block of salt, and the bishop’s seat. The wall that closes the apse is sculpted with a low-relief portraying Santa Barbara; the left wall features a low-relief of Jesus on the Cross, while on the left wall we have a low-relief of the "Holy Family”.
