Talking of Sicily, Jim, one of the nicest places we went to was the tiny church just outside Taormina, Chiesa Madonna della Rocca (reached via an energetic walk up hundreds of steps from the town, used to justify the giant ice cream you've just eaten). It looks like nothing much from the outside, just an unassuming little entrance built into the hillside. Plenty of the usual Catholic paraphernalia inside, as ever, but not too distasteful for a change. Parts of the ceiling and walls are actually the rock face and it's a haven of peace and quiet and coolness out of the sun. Generally speaking, we found the Catholic churches in that part of Sicily to be charmless places full of scary side chapels, ugly altars and glowering statues of no artistic merit, designed to subdue, I'd say. I haven't been to the Monreale one, but we'll be back there soon. We never pass up the opportunity of looking round any church that's open.