If you are looking for a place full of people, stores with swarming buyers, by the deafening and annoying yelling, where the cars are blocked by traffic, causing acoustic and chemical pollution, if you are looking for all this do not go to Pettineo. Instead, if, and above all, you love a place that is calm, where to can really rest, then take a brief visit in this little town of the Messinese.
The sea, coasted from the state road 117, seems mild the great heat and when I turn at Pettineo and I enter in the valley, I have a sensation that increases. But it's a completely wrong feeling.
The six kilometers that divides me from my destination of the sea are characterize by thousands and thousands of olives. Some have trunks out of proportion compared to the foliage, proof of their old-age. Silent proof of great events, of pain and of pleasure, of life and death. Lined up like obedient soldiers and faithful to order, they climb high up, up to the crest. They seem like an army that's ready to overcome a fortress. Brave footsoldiers, from the helmets, always green.
Every corner of these places is coltivated, a sign of a lively and flourishing agriculture.

Once in awhile nature and man create together something nice. A view to be framed in the mind: In the middle, a bed, of the river Tusa, at the center Pettineo on a high ground, at the right and on the left mountains even higher to complete this natural frame. And behind me the tyrrhenian, at a gun shot target. Sea and mountains in perfect harmony, in a perfect harmony of colors. Pettineo is a pleasant town that gives you a feeling of well being and tranquillity. The frentic rythm of the everyday life in this place is slowed down, compelled to become more human. The same sensation is felt from the travelers, that after a long and hard trip reach an oasis to rest.
I arrive in the town and ask for information at two men that were talking, I discover another richness of the place: The great feeling of hospitality and the extreme kindness of the manners of these people. Without asking they accompany me to my destination.

The streets of the town are narrow and almost all end up towards the highest part of the town, where it dominates the ruins of a castel, in which, at the feet, stands the village. All the streets are paved with pieces of porphyry and in some the absence of cars, gives a touch of old and unusual charm. All seems in man's measure: The absence of cars and horns, the kind manners of the people, a silence that can only do good to the eardrums and soul. But Pettineo isn't only this, it's something else.
A Pettinese, well-mannered, he takes me to the discovery of the city. We visit the church that is didicated to the patron, S. Oliva. The cult of the saint is really felt here and in all the surroundings. A main feast is dedicated to her. Inside, all about the saint and the moments of her life: The fresco of the ceiling, the "fercolo" for the procession, the statue, the device on the altar for the "apotheosis". Completely clashes the modern intervention: Just think of the living room ceramic of the altar.

The Mother Church, dedicated to Santa Maria delle Grazie (XVI century), is placed in the main square of the town. Has a beautiful bell-tower. In the past the Pettinesi were capable to identify from the different sound of the bell the reason for the calling ( religious rituals, fire alarm, etc.). The two stairs of the prospect, come from the right and from the left, up to the door entrance. From the first it's climbed for funeral rituals, all the rest from the second. Even here, in the past, zealous reverends, unexpected architects intervened with evident results. All of what some enlighted men have been able to create was impoverished and cancelled by others. Kings, the last ones, have sin of vanity, of egoism and of ignorance. This, needless to say, the same goes for the ruination made almost in all the churches that we visited in the towns of Sicily. Shins, in the complex, two triptychs of Gaginesca School. Superb the wooden door from the nineteenth century.
You can't lose to see the portal and the bell-tower (XVI century) of the church of S. Sebastiano and S. Nicolo' Church, the most antique (XIV century) and the most valuable, but closed for cult.

Let's go the castel. Must have been stately and the ruins high ten-twelve meters, they testify. Dominates from high, the inhabited and from here the Ventimiglia, men of these lands, bossing men and things. Still the sea, looking at North. Understanding that, al di la' for defensive reasons, who had built the manor in this place had good taste. The final surprise is the ex-convent of the Padri Cappuccini. Immersed in green between olives and lemons, has shortly been abandoned from the last tenant, a community of nuns. The cloister has been sweeped away and distorted by usually modern intervention. The church, small and comfortable, is used now and then. Underneath it, like a hidden treasure, is situated the crypt and his guests disposed with Franciscan order and simplicity. And then long hallways with ten empty cells. All in a perfect state of conservation. It's really sorry to know that they're not being used in any way, in a town without hotels.
It's time to leave this beautiful place, so close to the sea and the Nebrodi. Is still a combination sea-mountain returns inexorably with it's values of one and from the other: With the green from the olives, gold from the fields and the light-blue from the sea.
Leaving, I meet a couple of English tourist, also leaving. The beautiful green eyes of the girl match perfectly with the environment. Goodbye, they seem to say. Exactly, arrivederci Pettineo.