Top of the World
The South is full of wonderful places, often small and hidden, like the many villages that fill the southern regions with beauty. Among these, one that always makes tourists fall in love is in Silicia, in Partinico, just over 30 km from Palermo. Here, in fact, stands the Borgo Parrini, a hamlet of the small town, which is a real rainbow of colours.
Here, in fact, the houses are white and blue, or lemon yellow and with all colored tiles. Flowering plants, pebbles and many other details that recall Gaudi's style. This village was born between '500 and '600, in a district already called so in the maps of the Bourbon cadastre, which indicated the presence of the Jesuit Fathers of the Novitiate of Palermo (the Parrini, in fact), who purchased land in some feuds in the north-east of the territory of Partinico. Afterwards, at the beginning of the 18th century, in order to have more control over the agricultural activity of settlers and farmers, the Jesuits built a church dedicated to Maria SS. Del Rosario, around which a real village was born, with shops, houses for settlers, towers and small beams and mills. Still, around the middle of the 19th century, it became a dormitory for the workers employed in the wine business of the French Prince Henry d'Orleans Duke of Aumale, who had come to Sicily to produce and market the Moscatello dello Zucco.
Later, when in the '70s of the 20th century the village began to depopulate, in order to avoid abandonment, the remaining citizens invented a way to renovate some old houses, inspired by the Catalan architect Antoni Gaudì. From that moment on, the houses of the Sicilians living in this village were born, or rather reborn, to whom were given colour and vitality again. A place to discover, admire and even photograph, with its rainbow of colours.
