Monreale is a small city in the province of Palermo, in the northern part of Sicily, on the slope of Monte Caputo, overlooking the beautiful and very fertile valley called "La Conca d'oro" (the Golden Shell), famed for its orange, olives and almond trees, the produce of which is exported in large quantities. The town has approximately 32,000 inhabitants and is located 10 km and about 10 minutes south of Palermo. The city is characterized by winding and narrow streets with charming cafès and souvenir shops leading you to the large square, the heart of Monreale:

The Cathedral - It was thanks to King William II who built here the cathedral around 1170 after the occupation in 831 of the Arabs in Palermo forcing the Bishop to move his seat outside the capital in a small church in a village nearby later called Monreale, in 1182 the church, dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan cathedral.

No baroque modernization has touched the norman-arabic-byzantine architecture of the cathedral. The outside of the principal doorways and their pointed arches are magnificently enriched with carving and colored inlay, a curious and well succeded combination of the three styles. On the other side of the monument the cathedral is plain, except the aisle walls and three eastern apses, which are decorated with intersecting pointed arches and other ornaments inlaid in marble. It is, however, the large extent and glittering splendour of the glass mosaics covering the interior which make this church so splendid. With the exception of a high dado, itself very beautiful, made of marble slabs with bands of mosaic between them, the whole interior surface of the walls, including soffits and jambs of all the arches, is covered with minute mosaic-pictures in brilliant colors on a gold ground. The mosaic pictures are arranged in tiers, divided by horizontal and vertical bands. In parts of the choir there are five of these tiers of subjects or single figures one above another. Many are the illustrations of the Old and New Testament in Latin and some in Greek inscriptions. Many are wonderful the artistic works that can be admired inside the cathedral, valuable and rich in a historical shine that unites past and present.