Classical Virtues - NYTimes.com All of history seems to have passed through Sicily at some point. So for a crash course, be strategic and seek out a few plum sites. La Cattedrale di Palermo (Corso Vittorio Emanuele; cattedrale.palermo.it), built in 1185, is a cut-and-paste job of architectural styles - Byzantine, Norman, Spanish, Gothic - that tells the story of conquest and influence on the island. The ancient Romans, Renaissance Florentines and English Romantic poets, to name a few, all fell in love with (and wrote obsessively about) the Teatro Greco in Taormina (Via Teatro Greco, 41; 011-39-0942-23220). Today the gnarled ruins of the theater are little more than the city's star tourist attraction, though it is worth the $10 entrance fee for perfectly framed views of the Ionian Sea and Mount Etna. The Valley of the Temples (parcodeitempli.net), with over 3,200 acres of Greek temples, theaters and tombs, is the best reason to pass through the dull region of Agrigento. Second best is the beach coastline known as Eraclea Minoa, one of Italy's most remote, 25 miles away. And La Cattedrale di Monreale (Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, Monreale; cattedraledimonreale.it), 25 minutes from Palermo, is a modest porticoed cathedral from a distance. But inside the 12th-century Norman church are beautiful cloistered gardens and gleaming gold mosaics of astonishing detail - some of the best in Sicily.