Santo Stefano di Camastra, Italy: travel guide to Sicily's City of Ceramics on the Tyrrhenian coast

Santo Stefano di Camastra is a hilltop town in the province of Messina, in Sicily, set on the Tyrrhenian coast at the foot of the Nebrodi mountains, roughly midway between Messina and Palermo. Known across Italy as the City of Ceramics, it is one of the island's great centres of handmade pottery, its streets bright with colourful tiles, plates and majolica.

For travellers searching for Santo Stefano di Camastra, Sicilian ceramics, pottery towns in Sicily or the Nebrodi coast, the town is a vivid open-air showcase of one of Sicily's oldest crafts.

History

The history of the town is bound up with its destruction and rebirth: after a disastrous landslide in 1682 ruined the older inland settlement, a new town was built closer to the coast from 1683 under Giuseppe Lanza, Duke of Camastra, who laid out its Baroque plan and gave it his name. The immediate need for bricks, roof tiles and water pipes to build the new town gave a powerful boost to local ceramics, a craft that grew into the town's defining identity.

Ceramics and main sights

Today around fifty craft workshops keep the tradition alive, producing vases, plates, tiles and decorative objects in the bright oranges, yellows, greens, blues and violets that line the streets and turn the town into an open-air museum. The Ceramics Museum, housed in a historic palazzo, traces the craft's development with majolica and contemporary works. The Mother Church of San Nicola and the elegant main avenues display the local pottery throughout the town.

Practical information

Santo Stefano di Camastra is easily reached along the A20 motorway between Messina and Palermo and lies close to the seaside town of Cefalù. Beyond shopping for ceramics, it makes a good gateway to the beaches of the Tyrrhenian coast and to walks in the Nebrodi Park.