Why it is called Scala dei Turchi: history, pirates and legend

It is called Scala dei Turchi, in English the Turkish Steps or Stair of the Turks, for two reasons: "scala" (staircase) for the stepped shape of the cliff, and "dei Turchi" (of the Turks) for the memory of the North African pirates who, according to tradition, landed on this coast and whom Sicilians generically called Turks. That is the explanation given by FAI, the Italian heritage trust, and by several guidebooks. But it remains a tradition: we found no archive documents of a landing at this precise spot.

The "staircase" half of the name is the solid one: the steps come from the erosion of the softer layers of the marl, as explained in our guide to the geology.

Who were the "Turks", and what is documented?

They were not from Turkey but Saracen and Barbary corsairs from North Africa, whose coasts were within the orbit of the Ottoman Empire. They raided Sicilian coasts for centuries; according to an article by Elio Di Bella on the Sicilian news site Balarm (2022), the raids went on until the early 1800s, so the common idea that they ended with the battle of Lepanto in 1571 is almost certainly a simplification.

Only one dated episode is linked to the place. According to the same article, on the night of 8 August 1803 a band of raiders climbed the marl towards Realmonte, stole livestock and was driven back to their boats by Bourbon soldiers. The article does not say which document it comes from, and we found no other source. What remains of the pirate threat are the watchtowers along the coast, such as the Tower of Charles V in Porto Empedocle.

Andrea Camilleri also explains the name with Saracen pirates in his first novel, but that is literature, not history: see our guide on Camilleri, Pirandello and the films. The name, the visit and everything else you need are in our complete guide to Scala dei Turchi.