Roger II intended it as a manifesto: the cathedral he began raising in 1131, its apse filled by a golden Christ Pantocrator, ranks among the peaks of Arab-Norman art and joined the UNESCO list with Palermo and Monreale in 2015. Beneath its two towers, the medieval town slides down to a little harbour where houses touch the water.
Above everything looms the Rocca, the crag that repays the climb with views to the Aeolian Islands. A medieval washhouse, a long beach right in the centre and trattorias on the pier complete one of Sicily's best formulas: big monuments, small scale.
Near Cefalù
The closest destinations covered by our editors, with straight-line distance.
