3 Best Sights in Sicily, Italy

Tucked away in the southern end of the Valley of the Temples complex, you'll find Casa Diodoros, located near the Temple of Concordia. The recently renovated ancient farmhouse serves as the headquarters and exhibition space for the Diodoros project, an agricultural initiative to preserve agriculture, especially the native fruits and vegetables of the area. The house has a small café with an ample patio, away from the crowds, and a stunning view of the rolling fruit groves. The house sells homemade jams, juices, and other products from the fruits grown in the Valley of the Temples. Check the website for tours and cooking classes. 

Luminaries such as Picasso, Bertrand Russell, Ernest Hemingway, and Tennessee Williams all fell for the charms of this house, which from 1947 was set up as a hotel for writers and artists. It was run for over 50 years by Daphne Phelps, the niece of the painter Robert Kitson, who with the artist Frank Brangwyn designed and built the villa in the early 1900s. A guided tour reveals its stories and the works of art donated by artists. The dining room holds distinctive frescoes and furniture by Frank Brangwyn, and the library has the desk where Roald Dahl wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There are five antiques-filled rooms where guests can stay.

Unarguably the most intriguing of all Bagheria's villas is the Villa Palagonia, which can either be viewed as a delightful flight of whimsy or the product of a disturbed mind. The villa was erected in 1705 by Francesco, Prince of Palagonia, and his architect, Tommaso Napoli, but what makes it stand out today is the work of Francesco's grandson, Ferdinando, a hunchback who commissioned a weird assembly of sculptures depicting monsters and bizarre figures said to be caricatures of his wife's lovers. Visitors will see a parade of them on either side of the front and back entrances as well as atop the walls of the surrounding garden, a grotesque gallery of monsters, gnomes, and gargoyles. Only 64 of the original statues remain—they are once said to number 200—and these are in a poor state of repair.

You'll find the same air of dereliction when you climb the once-grand double staircase to enter the palace itself, where only five rooms are currently open to the public. Most striking of these is the Salone degli Specchi, a large hall whose domed ceiling is covered in mirrors, now cracked and fogged. Along the marbled walls here and in other rooms are arrayed flamboyant busts, faded frescoes, and trompe l'oeil effects that recall the grandeur that the villa must once have embodied, though you'll come away with a sense of wistful regret that more care has not been taken to restore and maintain this peculiar place.