Cava San Leonardo
Cava San Leonardo is sometimes also known as the “valley of mills”.
Advancements in technology meant that, by the 1950s, the water mills which had been used for centuries were phased out, in favour of electrical power. In just a short period of time, the valley was abandoned.
We can only imagine the throngs of mill owners, workers, ‘sciumarari’ (workers who skilfully used the natural gradient of the land for irrigation work), and washerwomen who washed their own clothes and those of the wealthy upper classes for payment, all of whom lived and worked in this valley from the early 1900s, where the wealthy land owners and businessmen of Ragusa also owned fields for growing wheat and flour mills.
Today, only the ruins of old mills remain, giving us a glimpse of the system of interconnected cascades and waterfalls from the pleasant path that runs along the valley floor from the Sant' Antonio Abate
starting below Via Peschiera, passing Donnafugata spinning mill, below Via San Leonardo, up to Ragusa Superiore.
starting below Via Peschiera, passing Donnafugata spinning mill, below Via San Leonardo, up to Ragusa Superiore.
