Church of San Cataldo and Villa Romana del Casale

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Church of San Cataldo

   San Cataldo is small, red-domed and slightly absurd, which is exactly why people love it. Three bare crimson cupolas sit on top of a square stone block, squeezed onto Piazza Bellini beside the Martorana church and a bit of Roman-era wall, in the middle of Palermo's old centre. It was built in the 1150s for Maio of Bari, an admiral and chancellor under King William I, and then promptly left unfinished when Maio was murdered a few years later. The inside has never had its mosaics, so the floor is the decoration: an inlaid marble pavement worn soft by nine centuries of feet. It is plain, and it is calm, and after the baroque excess elsewhere in the city that matters.

   Read the complete Church of San Cataldo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Church of San Cataldo is where the day begins. Next is Cefalù Cathedral.

2. 2. Cefalù Cathedral

   Cefalù is where Sicily squeezes a medieval town between a rock and a beach. The Rocca, a limestone crag, rises a steep couple of hundred metres straight behind the old centre, and the cathedral sits at its foot, a heavy, golden-grey Norman building with two square towers that you can see from the coastal highway long before you reach the town. According to tradition King Roger II promised to build it after surviving a storm at sea, and work began in 1131. Whatever the truth of the vow, the church is a statement of power by a Norman king who ruled Sicily and wanted it to look Mediterranean, not merely northern.

   Read the complete Cefalù Cathedral write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Cefalù Cathedral comes up about 72 km into the recorded legs. Next is Villa Romana del Casale.

3. 3. Villa Romana del Casale

   Somewhere in the fourth century AD, a very rich Roman, perhaps a senator or an imperial official, built a country villa in the hills of central Sicily and covered its floors with mosaics. The Villa Romana del Casale, just outside Piazza Armerina, has some of the finest and most extensive Roman floor mosaics anywhere, around 3,500 square metres, inscribed on the UNESCO list in 1997. Buried by a landslide in the Middle Ages, the villa was rediscovered and excavated mainly in the twentieth century, and the mosaics were preserved remarkably well.

   Read the complete Villa Romana del Casale write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 210 km into the recorded legs you reach Villa Romana del Casale. Next is back through Cefalù Cathedral.

4. 4. back through Cefalù Cathedral

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Cefalù Cathedral write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Cefalù Cathedral, late in the day. Next is Church of San Cataldo.

5. 5. Church of San Cataldo

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Church of San Cataldo write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Church of San Cataldo. That is the ride.