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Bagheria Solunto Términi Imerese and Cáccam |
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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.
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