Monreale: Glimpses of the Real Sicily

Move away from the beautiful Duomo in Monreale, a hill town above Palermo, and walk up the narrow and winding alleys. This is where you will see the Sicily of movies. A Sicily where people talk louldy, outside the church after mass or around a market. The town of Monreale has its share of real shops, and by that I mean family run stores.

There is so much charisma to this pretty town, which is just 20 minutes away from Palermo but has its own dialect. There's no doubt that mosaics of the Duomo and the Arab-Norman architecture is stunning and unique but the prized attractions of the town are the smaller and historic churches that are functional and used by normal Sicilians.

I walked into one such church, where a Sicilian beauty told me about the church and the people of Monreale. She laughed at my stupid ideas of her island. "No, my father and brothers won't kill you for engaging in a conversation with me, or for even calling me beautiful....Sicily really isn't like that anymore," she said.

The smell of fish in the markets, the colours of the fruits and the delicious desserts of the island; these were all things I saw, smelt and tasted in the pretty town of Monreale.