Erice was, since antiquity, an important center of the worship dedicated to the goddess of fruitfulness, the phenician Astarte, then the Greek Aphrodite and finally the Roman Venus. The city was a long time a spiritual center, so there are many churches, temples and convents.
The city is a maze of streets and stairs which beep its medieval atmosphere, specially under the winter fog.

At the top of the mount, are the vestiges of the Venus castle built in the XIIth by the Normans on the place of an antic temple dedicated to Venus. It remains in the walls stones going back to Elymians tribes (VIIIth century BC)
The panoramas and the calm pine forests surrounding the city reinforce the interest of the site.

Erice inherited its name from the mythical heroic King of Elymians. Aeneas would have also had a role in the legendary foundation of the city. Hercules would have passed here with oxen of Gerione (one of twelve work) and it would have killed there the king of Elymians which wanted to rob the animals.