The Chiesa della Martorana (formally Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio Our Lady of the Admiral) is the most undervisited significant Norman monument in Palermo and the church that most directly rewards the visitor who arrives without the crowd that the Cappella Palatina always attracts. Built in 1143 by George of Antioch, the

Castello Eurialo is the most sophisticated surviving ancient Greek military fortification in the world a fortress of extraordinary technical ambition built on the western edge of the Epipoli plateau above Syracuse between 402 and 397 BC under the tyrant Dionysius I, as the keystone of the 27-kilometre wall system that

La Cuba is the smaller and less celebrated companion to La Zisa in the Arab-Norman palatial programme of 12th-century Palermo a royal pleasure pavilion built by William II of Sicily in 1180 as part of the same Genoardo garden complex, standing approximately 500 metres southeast of La Zisa in what

The Ear of Dionysius (Orecchio di Dionisio) is the most famous single cave in the ancient world and the most visited natural feature of the Neapolis archaeological park in Syracuse the 23-metre-high, S-shaped cavity carved into the limestone cliff of the ancient quarry that produces an acoustic effect of extraordinary

La Zisa is the most intact Arab-Norman palace in Sicily and the finest single expression of Islamic palatial architecture in Italy a building of extraordinary sophistication built by the Norman king William I between 1165 and 1167 as the centrepiece of a vast royal pleasure garden (the Genoardo, from the

Syracuse has one of the finest food scenes in Sicily the specific combination of the Ortigia island location (surrounded by the sea, with the morning fish market on the doorstep), the specific Ionian seafood supply (the red prawns of Portopalo, the sea urchin of the Ionian coast, the swordfish from