Getting Salty

Heading out of Palermo in morning rush hour traffic, we zipped west towards Trapani and on to Marsala to visit the salt pans.  This particular salt production area is where they process organic salt by hand.  An interesting process, with dikes that flood the pans, and then the salt concentrates.  As they do in France, the Fleur de Sel is raked before the bigger salt crystals, and is the most prized of the salt here.
At So Salt, they harvest the salt 3 times per year.  Yesterday we were able to see the salt crystals forming on the bottom of the beds.

The main building an museum

Salt pans

When the salt is harvested and stored, it is covered with Roman tiles which line some of the pans

You can see the crystals on the bottom

The curatolo, the man who checks the salt to make sure it has the right amount of water and sun

Tiny shrimp that are pink color the salt, in the summer, Flamingos feed on the shrimp in the lagoon

The only plant that can live alongside the salt

Inside the windmill

We did a salt tasting, with the different types of salt

If you haven't seen the production of salt before, especially this ancient tradition, I highly recommend it.  You are able to walk out onto the salt pans to seen the different stages before the salt is harvested. There is a movie in English that explains the process, and then going out onto the salt pans brings it to life.