Boat Excursions and Water Sports
The lovely Mediterranean waters round Cefalù, as well as the scenic shoreline around it make it popular for water sports activities and boat excursions. At the quay, you could sign up for day trips for snorkeling inside the crystal waters, crusing cruises, or even paddleboard tours. On the latter, you may regularly explore a number of the sea caves along the coast, and on any of those, you can be sure of lovely surroundings. It is every so often possible to make day excursions as far because the Aeolian Islands from Cefalù.
Gibilmanna
A winding, scenic avenue leads from Cefalù southwards to Gibilmanna, on the slopes of the 1,081-meter-high Pizzo Sant'Angelo, inside the Madonie Mountains. On this stunning wooded setting, you may discover the pilgrimage convent of Gibilmanna.
The church become constructed within the 17th and 18th centuries and homes a Madonna by Italian Renaissance sculptor Antonello Gagini (1478-1536) this is specially respected. Every yr on September eight, the competition of the birth of the Virgin Mary pilgrims come to the sanctuary from throughout Sicily.
Osterio Magno
On the junction of through Amendola and Corso Ruggero, which branches off from the Piazza del Duomo, stands the Hosterium Magnum. This enforcing constructing with double and triple arched home windows became, consistent with lifestyle, the house of the Norman King Roger II in the 14th century.
Its two sections date from extraordinary eras. The older section going through through Amendola is constructed of tufa and golden limestone and has home windows. The more moderen square tower has an fashionable mullioned window. The call means "fortified creation" and there may be a comparable one in Palermo called Hosterium Magnum, the equal call in Latin.
Cathedral
The main tourist appeal in Cefalù is the cathedral, one of the maximum exciting medieval buildings in Sicily. Consistent with legend, the Norman King Roger II become caught in a storm at sea and vowed to build a church if he had been stored. Development in completing the cathedral turned into sluggish and it turned into no longer consecrated till 1267, so the more moderen parts of the building departed considerably from the monumental proportions of the authentic plans.
The church reflects the various influences of Sicilian history - Norman, Latin, Greek, and Arab. The nave has rows of granite columns with Byzantine capitals helping arches, above which might be richly painted wood beams. There is a twelfth-century font within the proper aspect aisle and a sixteenth-century statue of Mary through Italian Renaissance sculptor Antonello Gagini inside the left.
Within the choir, the side partitions are adorned with ornamental plasterwork, and there are also fifteenth-century statues, but it's far the mosaics on their gold heritage that will right away draw your attention. From the unique cathedral, they may be the paintings of Byzantine artists employed by Roger II, and they are ruled by means of the mosaic of Christ giving the blessing as ruler of the sector, which strains the semi-round dome of the apse. Despite frequent healing paintings because the fifteenth century, the mosaics of Cefalù are the various high-quality-preserved in Sicily.
Beach
Partially backed by using a prom, the Lungomare Giuseppe Giardina, Cefalù's lengthy seaside lies in a curve under the antique metropolis. Use it because the locals do, for a day stroll, a place to visit to take a seat on a bench and watch the ocean roll in, or an area to sun and swim. A part of the beach is free and part is set up with lidos — sunbeds and umbrellas for hire.
A breakwater protects the seashore from swells. On the breakwater give up of the seashore, the closing metropolis gate, Porta Pescara, is popular for iconic photos in the early morning or in the light of the placing solar.
La Rocca
The north stop of the Corso Ruggero is the place to begin for the only-hour climb up the crag called the Rocca. This 269-meter rock outcrop is composed almost entirely of fossils, and lots of it is included in pines. Its pinnacle is surrounded with the aid of medieval partitions, most of which might be original, and on the very summit are the stays (some of which can be reconstructions) of battlements from a Norman fort.
The views over the town, which lies nearly at once beneath, and the coast are outstanding, and attain on clean days to the Aeolian Islands. You can sometimes watch peregrine falcons from here.
