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Photo: Tango7174, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons
A village 8 km west of Palermo, sitting on the hill with a great view back towards the city and the sea. It is home to a historical Norman-Byzantine cathedral, which has been designated as one of several buildings named in a UNESCO World Heritage Site
Monreale is a town and comune in the Metropolitan City of Palermo, Sicily, Southern Italy. It is located 310 meters above the sea level on the slope of Mount Caputo, a small promontory overlooking the valley of Palermo, from which it is approximately 7 km to the south.
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The catacombs of the Capuchin convent contain over 8,000 mummified ex-residents from Palermo and its surrounding villages, some merely clothed skeletons, other remarkably well-preserved and lifelike. Well worth a visit, interesting, if slightly morbid. Children may either find it exciting or terrifying, and it must be the responsibility of their parents to think carefully before taking them. You can arrive via the tram line and a 10- to 15-minute walk. Your visit will not take longer than one hour. No photography allowed
Palace of the Normans
The oldest royal residence in Europe, the home of the rulers of the Kingdom of Sicily and imperial seat of the Emperor Frederick II. The palace contains the Cappella Palatina, the best example of the Arab-Norman style of Sicily. Nowadays it is the seat of the Sicilian Parliament.
Cappella Palatina
It's one of the artistic gems of Palermo: a chapel with magnificent mosaics and Arabian-style decorations, among the most beautiful in the world. It is inside of Palazzo dei Normanni.
Church notable for its brilliant red domes, which show the persistence of the Arab influences in the 12th century, with its typical Arab-Norman style. The €6 admission ensures that the lovely garden is quiet and peaceful.
Honey-coloured and Catalan influenced. Frederick II, Barbarossa's grandson, died in 1250 and is buried here, far from his ancestral home above Hohenstaufen, Germany. Frederick's sarcophagus is of porphyry dyed with imperial purple.
The Gesu Church is one of the most architecturally important in Palermo. Constructed between 1564–1633, its late date of completion resulted in an abundant use of polychrome marbles on both floors and walls. This form of decoration, which gradually evolved in Sicily from the beginning of the 17th century, was a mark of the beginning of the Sicilian Baroque period, which was to give Sicily almost an architectural national identity. The church has a modest facade and it's hidden in back street in central Palermo, unlike the great cathedral this one you have to look for.