Italy
Favignana
A butterfly-shaped island of abandoned tuna traps and coves carved from pale stone quarries.
The sea fills abandoned tufa quarries like squared swimming pools, their pale walls sharp-edged, the water transparent to the sandy floor. From the ferry the island's butterfly silhouette is unmistakable, two wings of rock pinched at a narrow waist where the town sits.
Favignana, biggest of the Egadi Islands off Sicily's western tip, owes its strange geometry to centuries of quarrying, the soft calcarenite cut away into coves that now shelter swimmers. For generations the island ran the Mediterranean's most celebrated mattanza, the ritual tuna trap whose nets and rites marked the whole community; the tradition ended in 2007, and the grand Florio works that once canned the catch now houses the museum that explains it. The island lies flat enough to cycle end to end between coves. Cala Rossa, a sea-flooded quarry, keeps its place among Italy's most extraordinary swimming spots.
Couple
Cycle between quarry coves, swim water clear as glass, and eat tuna at the harbour; an island calibrated for two.
Friends
Bikes, snorkels, Cala Rossa and bottarga-dusted pasta at dusk; the island's compact scale keeps the group together.
Family
The sheltered quarry coves hold calm shallow water, and the tuna works museum tells a real story between swims.
- Sea-flooded tufa quarries make sheltered geometric swimming holes, Cala Rossa the crown.
- The mattanza tuna ritual marked the island's identity for centuries before ending in 2007.
- The restored Florio works turned the grand tuna factory into the island's museum.
- The island lies flat enough to circle by bicycle between swims.
Tuna still anchors the island table, raw, grilled or preserved, with the Florio works explaining why.
Couscous alla trapanese crossed from North Africa and settled along this coast for good.
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