This little port is the symbol of the village. Named "Balata", from the Arab "balad", which means the paving stones, it's the nerve center both of the working and night life of Marzamemi. A characteristic archway separates it from Regina Margherita square, the second symbol of the village, built as a fishermen meeting point and in front of the  Villadorata Palace, elegant and essential sandstone building of ‘700, the residence of the Prince and Lord of Marzamemi, that from there wanted closely monitor the trades and the works activities relating to tuna fisheries and processing. the village, in fact, flourished around the "tonnara" [the tuna fishery, n.d.t.], probably of Arab origin, but dating back to the Spanish domination (1600), and in use until the second post-war period, even if it was heavily bombed during the allied landings.

Completely looted during the Second World War,  the Villadorata Palace still preserves its large courtyard, with its special and atmospheric light.  In front of the Palace, across the square, there are the first fishermen's "casuzze" [little houses, n.d.t.]: now they are used as holiday homes, cleaned and refurbished, but when, as a child, I was wandering nearby I felt like I was taking a time trip into a Dickensian universe transplanted on the seashore. At that time from the old tuna fishery church, dedicated to the Blessed Mother of Carmel came the clucking of many chickens: how it had become a henhouse, and who used to own such those noisy feathered animals was one of the mysteries of my childhood.

A byzantine wreck and two Roman columns enrich the deeper sea bed. At now there organized boat trips and dives, but when I was child I went there by motorboat with my uncle.

And so I spent my vacation as a child, between baths, boat trips, an exploration by bicycle, but above all in an ancient, sunburned land, where the History can be traced even in a pile of houses by the Sicilian sea, thrown away for fun by the hand of a giant child.