La Masseria farm holiday

The district of Gallina is situated in the northern part of the town of Avola. It extends as far as the sea and is separated from the municipal area of Syracuse by the river Cassibile. Once, the agricultural estate of the Cavaliere Vinci, a well-known nobleman from Avola, extended as far as this borderline: From the mountain slopes of Cavagrande with its water mills and caves, which the river has dug into the slopes and which the Greek called „Kakyparis“, to the mouth of the river, where in 413 B.C. the army commander from Athens Demosthenes surrendered with his six thousand soldiers to the people of Syracuse.

The Cavaliere Vinci gave part of the estate to his daughter on the occasion of her wedding with the engineer Giuseppe Conigliaro from Syracuse. Today, his descendents are the owners of part of the former estate which has been reduced to a total size of 55hectares.
In the east, the estate borders the sea, in the west the highway 115. In the south it reaches as far as the first row of houses on the beach "Sabbiadoro“ and in the north extends as far as the estate of the Marquis Loffredo-Gutkowski, the well-known beach Spiaggia della Marchesa or del Gelsomineto.

The engineer Conigliaro developed that part of the estate which is near the sea. In 1920 he built the „Masseria“ which today houses the Agriturismo. The small agricultural settlement which resulted from this activity has in parts been preserved until today. The main activities were the cultivation of almonds, in particular the type “Mandorla pizzuta”, as well as all other agricultural activities related to a Sicilian masseria.

The almond grove was cleared in the fifties of the last century.
Parts of the former farm can still be recognized today: the pigsty, the henhouse (today houses the workshop) the other sheds (the former cowshed houses the reception, while the horse stable has been transformed into a guestroom), the storeroom for the almonds (today’s restaurant) and the yard which is paved with antic ceramic tiles.
The yard was used to store the freshly collected almonds, which remained there for as long as it took for the green peel to fall off in the heat of the sun.
After that they were conserved in the storerooms with big, high windows.