Cattedrale di Monreale — Attraction in Monreale

We wandered towards the bus stop on Independence Square for Monreale, found out that it was actually about 200m away from where it was marked and just before the bus arrived we remembered you needed to buy tickets from the tobacconist! Luckily there was one nearby so we spent our €2.80 and got tickets in time to pack ourselves onto the bus. Definitely standing room only! It took quite a while to reach Monreale and we could have probably walked there in the same time but it was an experience. We walked up the hill towards the cathedral and saw a small alley with the rear of the cathedral at the end so we headed there to look at that aspect before rejoining the main square and buying our tickets. €12 each covered the cathedral, terraces, museum and cloisters - rather a bargain. The cathedral was like the Pallatine Chapel but bigger. And sadly a lot darker. I don't know if it was because the day was overcast but the place was spectacular but also very dull, the colours didn't stand out as much as they could have. We walked around, being continually impressed by the skill and vision of the craftsmen involved in building the spectacular place. We didn't spend too long in the diocesan museum as it was mostly vestments and religious artifacts and we'd seen enough of that sort of gaudy excess before. Strange how I consider a cloak with gold thread as 'gaudy excess' but a building whose walls and roof are covered in gold is 'spectacular'! I guess one is made to glorify a man wheras the other is built to glorify a god. From the museum though you could access the roof walk which gave views over the cloisters and then after climbing some more stairs, over the Bay of Palermo and the city itself. The clouds did look very foreboding from up here! We returned to the cathedral and asked how we got to the cloisters, which turned out to be via a building in the square behind...

Sicilia is unique. Marvelous nature of all kinds. Hill top villages. Endless pastures. Rough, unclimbable rock formations. Old school farming. Big, busy cities. Likewise in culture. Made up of Greek, Normann, Arabic, and European settlements. You never grow tired of Sicilia. And yet. Having seen hundreds of Baroque churches, the one more outstanding than the other, I get fed up. These are not sanctuaries but art exhibitions. Boasting with money enough to feed the world. Appraising God in a way so strange, even hostile, to me. So, climbing up to Monreale and from below gazing at the catterdrale struck something deep within. Like the Norman red top church in Palermo. The towers decorated so plain, in only two sand colors, showing simple geometric forms. Squares and circles. When entering the sanctuary, you are welcomed by a giant face of Jesus on the inside of the cupola. Jesus as friend, shepherd, and Lord. All over the main hall, the walls are decorated, telling church stories, reminding us of the lifelong struggle to follow this friend, shepherd, Lord. All kept in wood, gold, and green mosaic. Yes, I know, gold. However, this time, in this church, gold seems like the only right way of honoring the friend, shepherd, Lord. There is another room next to the main church hall. Not less fascinating. The floor is decorated in numerous geometric forms, clearly Arabic inspired. So, here, in this church, Arabic, Normann, and Christian traditions meet and melt together. A strong message to our modern Western world where everything Arabic is labeled odd and dangerous (even doomed). These patterns and the Normann gold reminded me that God made all of us for His glory. Translated for the non churchly, this means that we all are to live abundantly in love, sharing what none of us can claim to possess, but all are welcomed humbly to take part...

This place is stunning, definitely worth visiting, however stupid charging really takes the shine off. I'm not complaining that we had to pay, that wasn't the issue, it's that at the desk we paid to get in, I specifically asked for the ticket for "everything", and the man behind the desk confirmed "yes everything". Imagine my surprise then when we get in and can't find out how to access the cloisters. Oh that's a different entrance around the side. So we go out to find this other entrance and guess what, they want more money to see the cloisters. It's the same building! Extremely sneaky and felt like we were being scammed. If they'd just included this in the price to start with we'd have paid but refused given the deceitful way they'd sold tickets, after all you can see it from above as part of the main ticket. So we walked back around to the main entrance and in the 2 minutes we'd been gone they'd closed the gates for a 2 hour lunch. They literally seen us go out to try to find the cloister entrance and never said anything, no signs except on the gate when it is closed. There were plenty of people still inside and we showed our tickets and explained but they refused to let us back in, we only had the chapel left, which they could see on the ticket and which took all of about 5 minutes, we'd have been in and out before the majority of the other people, common sense should have prevailed. So had to hang about for a couple of hours to complete the last part of our tour. You could tell the staff were actually taking pleasure in it. Really amazing place let down by downright greed...