Tripology Travel Experts Blog: Palermo

Monreale--hill-top village above Palermo has magnificent mosaic cathedral

Monreale is a tiny picturesque hamlet on the outskirts of Palermo, situated high on a hilltop. You have to park your car at the base of the hill and then climb the 100+steps to the pedestrian-only town square.

Monreale also has its fair share of feral cat colonies. We followed one old woman carrying a shopping bag who was clearly calling the cats in Italian. As she dumped the contents of her bag, the cats came running to devour mixtures of cat food, leftover pasta dinners, and soup. “Misha” is what she had lovingly named them all. We contributed a few dollars to her efforts and then continued down a narrow street where Giacomo was selling wooden ‘gatti’ (cat) figurines for a euro each. Naturally we bought a collection to remind us of a pleasant morning in bucolic Moreale.

However, Monreale is most famous for its church with incredible mosaic tiles. Every of the church interior is covered with thousands-years old mosaics which essentially re-create the entire Bible. The mosaic scenes were intended as a kind of theological picture book to teach the illiterate peasants. Even if you think you’ve tour enough churches to last a lifetime, this one should be experienced for its unusual mosaic artwork.

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