Morghella – Palombe Water

Morghella Beach is the largest of Marzamemi’s beaches. It is located roughly in the central part of the long coastline that, from the tourist port of Marzamemi (more commonly known as Porto Fossa) reaches Portopalo, punctuated by long rocky stretches that alternate with delightful coves and inlets. The beach presents itself as a wide sandy shore of an intense golden-yellow color on a crystal-clear sea of a beautiful Caribbean green and a spectacular view south to the Island of Capo Passero. The transparency of the water not infrequently allows one to admire, close to the shore, schools of delightful silver fish not at all intimidated by the presence of bathers, while south of the beach, where the rocky shoreline begins, the deep and varied seabed is home to numerous fish species and is particularly suitable for those who enjoy scuba diving and the snorkeling. Questa spiaggia offre ampi spazi di balneazione libera, tranne nel tratto centrale dove insiste uno stabilimento balneare, “Il Lido Morghella”, nonché nell’estremo lembo meridionale, sede di un lido piuttosto esclusivo e dal nome evocativo “Baiamuri”. Entrambi gli stabilimenti balneari offrono i servizi necessari e sono forniti di bar e ristorante, Il Lido Morghella è dotato peraltro, di passerella di legno che consente dei disabili alla spiaggia.

This wide strand is bordered on the north by a cluster of dwellings that juts out on a small promontory over the sea, while to the south it is bounded by the rocky shoreline. Along this shoreline, about 500 meters south of Morghella beach, there is a bathing place, called Acqua delle Colombe, among the most picturesque in the area, frequented by the most skilled rock-walkers and those who enjoy acrobatic dives into an amazingly blue sea. It is a cliff face overlooking the sea, but at a certain point, sloping downward it presents a kind of natural staircase that allows you to get all the way to the sea. From this rock springs, incredible to say, a spring of fresh water to which doves are wont to drink; hence the toponym given to this rock.

Behind the beach, to the west, lies the Pantano di Morghella, the third largest in the territory of Pachino after those of Cuba and Longarini. In Arab times salt pans were excavated within this Pantano, now abandoned but in use until the 1960s. This marsh environment, fed by meteoric and partly also marine waters by infiltration, enjoys a varied flora and a very rich fauna, in which there are many species of birds that nest here; but above all it constitutes a stopover site for migratory birds that plays a strategic ecological and structural role within the wetlands of southeastern Sicily.