Sicily: Palermo and the West

Early flight from London to Palermo. By private coach to our hotel in the city centre. After settling into our rooms, we begin our exploration with an orientation tour of Palermo by coach. We conclude the afternoon with a short walk around the area of the Vucciria and a visit to the Oratorio di San Lorenzo, decorated in 1699 by the master stuccodore Giacomo Serpotta. We return to the hotel where we enjoy a welcome drink followed by dinner.

A day in Palermo. In the morning we visit the royal apartments of the Palazzo dei Normanni and the 12C Cappella Palatina, with its splendid mosaics and painted wooden ceiling, a masterpiece of Arabo-Norman art. Not far from the palace is the charming church of San Giovanni degli Eremiti, also built by Roger II, which has five red domes, a pretty garden and little cloister. After an independent lunch we visit the Duomo founded in the 12C on the site of an earlier church which had been turned into a mosque in the 9C by the Arab rulers of the city. Within the cathedral, which has seen many additions over the centuries, are six royal tombs, including that of Roger II, the first King of Sicily, who was crowned here on Christmas Day 1130. Included dinner.

A morning excursion east of Palermo to Cefalù, where a walk through the old town takes us to the magnificent Norman cathedral, in a dramatic setting, with the high rock of the ancient Greek acropolis rising behind it. The powerful mosaic figure of Christ Pantocrator in the apse is a masterpiece of Norman Byzantine art. In the Museo Madralisca is the Portrait of a Man by Antonello da Messina, Sicily’s great Renaissance painter. Our lunch is at a local establishment in Cefalù. We return to Palermo mid-late afternoon. Dinner is independent.

Our first stop is the Villa Malfitano, built for the Whitaker family at the end of the 19C, which has an opulent interior and is surrounded by lovely gardens. We continue to the lively Ballarò market and the Chiesa del Gesù decorated in exuberant baroque style with sculpted figures, marble reliefs and coloured stone inlay. After an independent lunch we make our way to the crossroads of Quattro Canti, which displays statues of four Spanish kings of Sicily and the four patron saints of Palermo, was the heart of the 16C and 17C city, while in the nearby Piazza Pretoria is the monumental Fontana Pretoria, purchased from Florence in 1574 by the Senate of Palermo. Alongside is the Piazza Bellini with the lovely little 12C church of La Martorana, which was founded by George of Antioch, admiral and first minister under Roger II, and contains some fine mosaics. From here we head to the Archaeological Museum Antonio Salinas which houses a fine collection of objects from prehistoric to Roman times including the metopes which once adorned the Greek temples at Selinunte. Dinner is independent.

A morning visit to Monreale on the mountain slopes overlooking Palermo and the Conca d’Oro, where the great 12C Norman cathedral built by William II is one of the most impressive buildings in Sicily. The interior glitters with over 6400sq.m of magnificent mosaics showing traditional scenes from the Old and New Testaments, while the adjoining cloister has over 200 double columns with figurative Romanesque capitals supporting Arab-Norman arches. We return to Palermo for an independent lunch. In the afternoon we visit the Regional Art Gallery in the Palazzo Abatellis, the highlight of which is the Virgin Annunciate by Antonello da Messina. In the evening we are invited by special arrangement to a private tour, drinks, and dinner with the Duchess Nicoletta Polo at the Palazzo Lanza Tomasi, last home of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, author of one of Sicily’s best-known novels, ‘The Leopard’.

We leave Palermo in the morning and drive west towards Marsala, famous for its sweet wines. We stop on the way to take a short boat ride to the island of San Pantaleo. Here we explore the ruins of Punic Motya and visit the small museum, which houses a remarkable marble statue known as the Motya charioteer, a masterpiece of ancient Greek sculpture, before stopping for lunch at the Whitaker Foundation café (included). We then continue our journey to Marsala where we visit the archaeological park of Lilybaeum by the seafront, which includes the Baglio Anselmi Museum, in a former Marsala distillery and wine cellar. One hall contains a Punic warship discovered by British underwater archaeologist Honor Frost in 1969. We then continue by coach to to Mazara del Vallo, a lively fishing port with a distinct Arab character. In 1998 a superb Greek bronze statue of a dancing satyr, the jewel of the small local museum, was discovered in the waters off Mazara by a local fisherman. We continue by coach to Agrigento for the first of three nights. Dinner is in our hotel, overlooking the Valley of the Temples.

We spend the morning in the impressive Valley of the Temples. The Temple of Concord, which was converted into a church in the 6C, is one of the best preserved of all Greek temples and the vast Temple of Olympian Zeus, now in ruins, is the largest Doric temple known. The archaeological museum houses a superb collection of finds from Agrigento and sites nearby, including a telamon from the Temple of Zeus, 7.6m high, reconstructed from fragments. Lunch is at a local fattoria in the countryside near Agrigento, where we also enjoy olive oil tasting. The afternoon and evening are free.

We leave Agrigento by coach in the morning to travel to Burgio, a small town dominated by the ruins of an Arab castle and famous for its carved stone portals and local ceramics industry. Our visits include the ceramics museum, housed in the 16C former monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie and the workshop of a local potter. After lunch (included) we continue by coach and drive west to visit the archaeological park of Selinunte, ancient Selinus, the most westerly of the Greek cities on Sicily, in a beautiful location overlooking the sea. The extensive ruins include an acropolis and several grand temples. We return to Agrigento for a farewell dinner.

This morning we leave Agrigento and travel to Segesta, once an important Elymian city, with a beautifully located Doric temple, which has been admired by travellers for centuries. After an independent lunch we visit the temple as well as the small theatre which looks north towards the sea. We continue to Palermo airport for our flight to London.