The best way of getting to Palermo is on the night boat from Naples. If you wake in the early hours, you can go on deck and see Stromboli glowing fitfully like an ogre’s cigar, but the approach to Palermo in the early morning sunshine is reward enough. Few cities have a more theatrical setting: the Conca d’Oro, or Golden Shell, formed by Monte Pellegrino on the northern side and Capo Zafferano on the southern, still make you catch your breath.

Sicily marked the western extremity of the Greek world, which extended eastwards to Asia Minor and beyond. The Greeks gave it the name Panormus, meaning “all harbour”, but never made it a proper colony – probably because the Phoenicians from Carthage had got there first and turned it into one of their biggest trading posts. Consequently, Greek monuments must be sought elsewhere – at Segesta, Selinunte and Agrigento, or at Syracuse, where the temple has been transformed into the present cathedral. Nor will you find much left by the Romans. For them, Sicily was just another province – quite a useful one, since the land was amazingly fertile and provided the capital with a large proportion of its grain, but a province nonetheless.