Religious itineraries in Sicily: an euro-mediterranean route inspired by the Cult of St. Agatha

The history of tourism characterizes journey and vacation as different ways to cross the territory and enjoy its historical and artistic heritage. The traveller was originally homo viator, a pilgrim travelling around the world, nonchalant to worldliness infecting him because concentrated only searching faith which often coincides with the remission of sins. This kind of religious journey has never disappeared. In the modern era it was related with a tourism that, as well as identifying the ancient specific reasons, adds a cultural value that is the knowledge of a territory where the religious event is an essential part of the whole, although sometimes with a central role. With this whole we mean the itinerary, the landscape richness and historical and cultural values of the territory. In respect of this introduction the paper aims at proposing an hypothesis of Euro-Mediterranean religious itinerary. It involves in primis Catania, in Italy, and in secundis Rabat in Malta. According the most recent theories about tourism our research means to combine religious journey and vacation, allowing the visit of places of worship for some days, especially in Catania during periods not occurring at the same times of St Agatha’s event. We aim at proposing a not seasonal fruition of these places of worship with a visit longer than one day, and making a relational model which could establish interpersonal and environmental relations able to value the naturalistic and cultural heritage both in big towns and little ones. This model could create the sprawl effect in the use of other goods and services located in the same places. This proposal is articulated in the construction of a cartographic path and a set of summary sheets of most important places for the cult of St Agatha, as well as a summary about the potentialities and criticalities referring this type of tourist offer.