Bagheria Solunto Términi Imerese and Cáccamo

Bagheria Solunto Términi Imerese and Cáccam

Although it's tempting to head straight for Cefalù, there are some enticing diversions before that - and they can also be seen on day-trips from Palermo. Road and railway cut eastwards, across Capo Zafferano, to reach the rural town of BAGHERIA , a ten-minute ride by train. Scattered across the town, a seventeenth- and eighteenth-century summer retreat, is a series of (largely neglected) Baroque country villas, on which the city's nobility stamped their mark. Most are privately owned, and closed to the public, but there is access to the Villa Palagonia (daily 9am-12.30pm & 4-6.30pm; L5000/¬2.58) on Piazza Garibaldi. Noted for its menagerie of eccentric gargoyles, the villa is only ten minutes' walk from the train station (left out of the station onto Corso Butera, then left).

You might combine a trip to Bagheria with a tour around the Graeco-Roman town at SOLUNTO (the ancient Solus), one stop further on the train (the station is called Santa Flavia-Solunto-Porticello). The site (Mon-Sat 9am-1hr before sunset, Sun 9am-12.30pm; L6000/¬3.10) is about a half-hour walk north from the station, beautifully stranded on top of Monte Catalfano. There's a museum at the entrance, as well as the impressive remains of Roman houses (some with mosaics) and shops, a well-preserved agora and a fragmentary theatre - all looking down on the small bay below, guarded by the medieval Castello di Solanto .

Another twenty minutes on, TÉRMINI IMERESE has an upper town whose cliff-edge belvedere is another excellent vantage-point for views of the curving shore. The grand piazza holds a seventeenth-century cathedral studded with four sixteenth-century statues, and the Museo Civico (Tues-Sat 9am-1.30pm & 4-7pm, 3-6pm in winter, Sun 9am-1.30pm; free), over the other side of the piazza, is worth a peek for the remains from the ancient Greek site of Himera, 20km to the east. Términi, after a prosperous Greek and Carthaginian period, was also a Roman spa, and in the shaded, congested lower town are the remains of the former baths, covered now by a hotel in Piazza delle Terme, the stylishly old-fashioned Grand Hotel delle Terme (tel 091.811.3557; L200,000-250,000/¬103.29-129.11), close to the little port. Términi would be a fair place to spend the night, though there's only one other hotel , Il Gabbiano , at Via Libertà 221 (left out of the station, a 20min walk; tel 091.811.3262, www.ilgabbianohotel.neomedia.it ; L120,000-150,000/¬61.98-77.47), which in August, also has a basic annex with shared bathrooms (L60,000-90,000/¬30.99-46.48). The nearest campsite , Himera (tel 091.814.0175), is at Buonfornello, 15km east of town; take the bus from outside the train station.

Buses from Términi's train station also run regularly to CÁCCAMO , 10km south. The small town, a jumble of little houses astride a craggy hill, is dominated by a sturdy, battlemented twelfth-century Fortezza , its sheer walls built on a crag that falls away down into the valley below. Though it's propped up by scaffolding, you should at least be able to climb up to the gates of the castle for views over the steeply stepped streets; for entrance, try ringing at the door of the custodian at Corso Umberto 6.