Highest swing in Europe inaugurated in Sicily

 The highest swing in Europe has been inaugurated in Italy's first high-adrenaline experience adventure park in Sicily.

The 16-metre-high structure was unveiled at San Mauro Castelverde, in the province of Palermo, by Mayor Giuseppe Minutilla and the swing's builders Giovanni Nicolosi and Guglielmo Speciale, founders of the Zipline Sicilia company which also runs a zipline a short distance away inside the park, which also offers dinghy escursions on the rapids of the Gole di Tiberio.

Talking of the swing, Mayor Minutilla said that "with this structure we have completed a course that has changed the face of San Mauro, while also giving hope to young people and to the village.

"We have emerged from oblivion and finally today people are talking about San Mauro no longer as a village with a mafia 'mandamento' (branch), but as a village of change.
"Thanks to these adrenalin-fuelled realities we are at the centre of the world and all this has created employment hopes too.
"Our economy is starting to change too and from purely agrarian it could become varied, offering the possbility to young people to stay here instead of moving to northern Italy or abroad for jobs".
The new swing opens out onto a valley that is 300 metres deep.
photo: San Mauro Castelverde