The Santa Lucia Hotel brings out various emotions in its guests. Opinions range from terrible to excellent. It is certainly possible to draw the short straw and get one of the lower level rooms at the back below road level with little view. We were on the sixth floor and had a beautiful view on to mountain vistas – the most fortunate had views of the placid sandy bay and the beautiful town of Cefalu. This view ranks among the best I have seen from any hotel!

With the door to the balcony at our side of the hotel open the noise from the road traffic was terrible. Like flicking a switch it faded to a murmur on us shutting the door. At the other side of the building, the Palermo to Messina trains passing about 15 metres from the hotel leads to a thunderous roar if doors or windows are open. Internally the building echoed with noises from the corridor, other rooms and the whine of the two lifts. The rooms are basic but have private facilities and a TV. Some strange Italian law doesn’t allow the use of air-conditioning in October even if the room is sweltering hot.

The staff were cheerful and helpful especially waiters and kitchen staff, who labour from dawn till dusk. The reception staff helped me take the necessary steps on getting my wallet stolen in Palermo.

Guests have the same table and waiter during their stay as in a cruise ship. In the mornings guests help themselves to a buffet breakfast. The main meals were a bit basic but well presented, tasty and of ample proportions. Considering the hotel has 256 bedrooms and around 500 guests this is no mean feat.

Apart from one evening when a help yourself buffet was available all other evening meals were to set menus left on our dinner table the night before us to mark our choices. Each course, except for dessert, had a choice of two meals with a pasta base meal being one of two available for every starter. Hobson’s Choice was the rule for desserts. Sometimes it was simply grapes.

The 'Gala' night was especially entertaining as you could choose to dress up and dine. The waiters dressed up in their finest uniforms and paraded from the kitchen to the tables in a fine military style with the restaurant lights turned down low and their platters ablaze to light the way.

The hotel has a lounge area and bar. There is regular evening entertainment including music in the hotel's "Blue Bar". The racket quickly drove us out again for we hate loud music.

There is an outdoor swimming pool and sun terrace. The hotel has its own private beach but which may not be suitable for the less mobile for there is a smelly, damp tunnel followed by 104 steep concrete steps down to it – unlit at night and an accident waiting to happen!

Cefalù is a captivating seaside town a two-kilometre walk along a splendid beach from our hotel. Beneath a steep mountain overlooking a rocky coast it has winding narrow, medieval streets, and delightful restaurants. It contains in addition the Norman-Arab-Byzantine cathedral with its unique mosaics. The huge building sits off Piazza Duomo and the main thoroughfare, Corso Ruggiero.

On the northern coast 75 kilometres east of Palermo, connected by road and rail Cefalù sits on the site of an ancient Sicanian and Greek settlement. All that remains of these cultures today is the ruins of the Temple of Diana an ancient Sicanian-Greek temple on the mountain overlooking the town. The foundation of this simple building is one of the oldest still standing in Sicily.

Battlements against the many invaders stand atop the mountain. A few parts of the outer wall are restorations; most are original. For the stout-hearted, the summit, with its magnificent view of the town, cathedral, mountains and sea, is well worth the climb. Viewed at night from our hotel on the coast to the west, the lit up mountain and cathedral make for an inspiring site, evoking much of the city's medieval grandeur.

The Museo Commundale Mandralisca is worth a visit. It displays relics of the town’s past including a rare Greek vase depicting tuna fishing in the nearby Lipari Islands. The treasure trove though is among the portraits. It is the Portrait of an Unknown Man, Antonetto da Messin’s rendering of a sly smiling enigmatic man often compared to the Mona Lisa.

Several medieval buildings still stand in the city itself. These include the lavatoio a medieval washhouse fed by freshwater springs, and the Osteria Magna (Great Guest house), where King Roger II stayed during his visits to Cefalù. The fisherman’s quarter, with its old houses clusters along the seafront on Via Vittorio Emanuele. A maze of charming medieval streets makes Cefalù a pleasant spot to relax, whether you stay for a morning or an entire day.

There are some good restaurants in the town centre and near the shore that offer seafood and other local specialities. As the cathedral and museums are close in the afternoon from 1 to 4, this is a perfect time to eat or go sunbathing. Finding parking space is difficult for those with cars but most trains on the Palermo-Messina railway stop at Cefalù. The train station is close to the centre of town.

Cefalù has kept its medieval feel centred on the Norman cathedral built by Roger II in the 12th century. Cefalù’s highlights included the cathedral with its unique mosaics, the terrace cafes at the Piazza Duomo, the Museo Madralisca with collections spanning from Greek times to the Renaissance, and alleyway discoveries such as the Port Marina gate and the ancient fountain and town laundry spot, U’Ciuni. On the negative side its narrow streets sometimes poorly lit with token payments can feel threatening after dark.

This twin-towered cathedral of mixed ancestral styles rises high above the red tiled roofs of the town. It itself in turn is overshadowed by a massive crag that crowds the church and town between a wall of rock and the sea. The simple architecture of the surrounding houses exalts the magisterial beauty of the cathedral. Allegedly Roger II was caught at sea in a storm and vowed to build a cathedral at the first harbour he came upon. That harbour was Cefalù and the site chosen is known as Piazzo Duomo in the town centre.

When the Norman conquered Sicily about 1091 they found Byzantine Greeks and Saracen Arabs architecture sophisticated, sturdy and aesthetic. The Normans made their contribution by enriched existing styles by adding arches, columns giving combined styles, rarely found together beyond Constantinople, Alexandria or Baghdad. Unlike these cities Norman Palermo the capital if Sicily was multicultural. The king was Christian but there was no "official" religion. Muslims, Christians and Jews enjoyed equality of freedom of worship and the streets were full of Greek-speaking Byzantines, Arab-speaking Saracens (Moors) and the occasional Norman or Lombard. All were part of a nation just beginning to emerge with its own ethnic and architectural identity.

Begun in 1131 the building of Cefalù cathedral and the adjoining abbey and cloister continued until the 15th Century. The outside is in the Romanesque style, typical of Sicilian church architecture of the period. Two tall towers flank the entrance porch. Norman interlaced pointed arches decorate the façade – the first Sicilian example of its kind.

This church was one of the first Sicilian cathedrals built on the Western model, with a long nave and distinct transept. This suggests an influence more Norman than Byzantine or Arab, though the icon high above the central apse of the Christ Pantrocrator, with an elongated face and powerful eyes that seemed to follow us around the church leaves no doubt the Eastern (Orthodox) tradition was alive in western Sicily at the time. The Bible he holds is open to Latin and Greek inscriptions of ‘I am the light of the world’.

The magnificent Byzantine mosaics in the cathedral are the oldest in Sicily. Now stripped of Baroque decorations the cathedral shows the mosaics to their best advantage. The authorities responsible for preserving the architectural and cultural assets in Sicily decided, some years ago, adding abstract designs would enhance this cathedral. Windows by artist Michele Canzoneri’s now incorporate abstract, mixed media (glass, acrylic, fibreglass resin). These have little to do with the ecclesiastical architecture of medieval or Renaissance Europe but they stopped us in our tracks.

‘I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous names and had seven heads and ten horns.’ (Revelation 17:3) This Biblical inspiration for the stained-glass window entitled ‘The Seven Heads’ is a fitting allusion to the lack of reverence suggested in this newest addition to Cefalù's splendid twelfth century cathedral.

Cefalù boasts a special patrimony - that of Artemis goddess of the woods and hunters, protector of youth, daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Diana is the Latin name for the Greek goddess Artemis. Her legacy contains expression in the megalithic Temple of Diana going back to the Sicans, one of the native peoples of Sicily.

If you want to be nearer to this deity, exercise your legs, escape the heat and get stunning views then get on your hiking boots and climb La Rocca, Cefalu's fortified mountain. Thin-soled shoes are not advised as the upper paths are rough - most of the ascent to the temple is up well-constructed steps. The climb up is worth the effort for the bird’s eye views of the cathedral, town and coast. The temple a megalithic building dating back to the IX century B.C., is the only pre-classical monument in Sicily.

The building’s foundation consists of large interlocking stones. Later periods have seen the ruined temple revived. The upper "classical" sections for instance date from Greek times. The remains of an apse and arched windows are visible in the rear and interior of the temple. The twelfth century saw the building used as a chapel. Beyond the temple, much of the mountain is wooded with stone pines and other trees - a place worthy of a goddess.

Few known Sicanian buildings still stand in Sicily; Phoenician, Carthaginian, Greek and Roman architecture is more readily found. The Sicans, Sicels and Elami merged with successive cultures making it difficult to identify the contribution of these earlier ‘native’ civilisations to the island’s heritage.

The Byzantine era saw Cefalù thriving as the seat of a Greek bishop. Saracen raids in the 8th century drove its residents away from the sea to seek refuge on top of La Rocca. Cowering in fear the inhabitants survived the best they could. Various rainwater catchments tanks provided their water supply and presumably they procured food as and when they could. The inhabitants didn't permanently descend again until 1131, when Roger II ordered the town’s reconstruction.

Fragments of several small castles are present within the vast medieval wall encircling the plateau. The battlements (crenels) of the highest "castle," at the summit, are a recent - but faithful- reconstruction. To get there is a stiff climb up a rough track from the temple. It offers panoramic views of the town, sea and mountains and a nice breath of cool air.

During the War of the Vespers, Charles the Lame, son and heir of the King of Naples languished a prisoner by the Aragonese in the citadel following a naval defeat. Where better to ponder his misfortune than this lofty view of the world. The prince survived his stay at Cefalù to become Charles II of Naples in 1285, though his dynasty had to renounce their rights to Sicily.

A day trip took us to Monreale on the slope of Mount Caputo about seven kilometres south of Palermo. It has an even more splendid cathedral than Cefalù. A mixture of Arab, Byzantine and Norman artistic styles framed by traditional Romanesque architecture combines in a blend of the best that the Christian and Muslim worlds of the 12th century had to offer. The cathedrals mosaics emblazon 6,340 square metres of the duomo's interior surface - far more extensive than those of the cathedral of Cefalù.

The young King William II's objective in building the cathedral was to impress on his subjects, especially the Muslims, the power and riches of his monarchy. He wanted to demonstrate to his subjects his notion that he ruled by divine right, thus the mosaic over the Royal throne shows Christ crowning William II and one over the Episcopal throne shows William II offering Monreale Cathedral to the blessed Virgin. Rarely in the West were living monarchs represented in a Heavenly setting in a public work of art.

William wanted to make the Roman Catholic Church the official Church of Sicily through the splendour of the cathedral. Work started in 1174 and most of the major work on Monreale Cathedral finished before William II's death at 36 in 1189. Externally the cathedral is not striking. The dazzling mosaics on a background of gold mosaic tiles in the interior of Monreale Cathedral are what make the church world-famous. These cover nearly all the surfaces of the cathedral's walls, excepting the ground level, up to a height of two metres, where the walls are white marble bordered with inlaid polychrome decorations. Their splendid and delicate beauty creates an atmosphere of tranquillity, solemnity and awe.

The interior of the church is about 100 metres long by 40 metres wide. There are 130 individual mosaic biblical scenes and other religious events. The Old Testament as portrayed on the walls of the central nave, starts from the Creation and ending with Jacob's Fight with the Angel. The mosaics on the side aisles show the major events of the life of Jesus, from His birth to the Crucifixion, and include a portrayals of the miracles worked by Christ.

The masterpiece is the domineeringly majestic Christ Pantocrator (All-Powerful) found on the central apse over the main altar. This is one of the world's largest displays of this art. The entire image is 13 metres across and seven metres high. Beneath the portrait of Jesus is a mosaic of the Virgin Mary enthroned with the Christ child on her lap. There are mosaics of various other saints and scenes from the Gospels all about the transept area.

To reach Monreale, which is on the edge of the city of Palermo, take the number 389 bus from Piazza Indipendenza in Palermo. The bus takes about 20 to 30 minutes, depending on traffic, to arrive at Monreale cathedral – be warned, keep a tight grip on valuables on route!