Exploring Sicily

      Looking through the Elderhostel trip offerings for something in April to pair with my yearly trip to to Kalamazoo for the Medieval Congress in early May, I saw the timing for "Treasured Sicily" fit in nicely. I've tracked the Staufer, particularly my favorite emperor, Fredrick II, across Germany itself and thought it might be time to visit his favorite territory, Sicily. His Sicily included southern Italy, too, of course, but the island would do for me. I'd also read about the Normans who preceded him and knew about the Greek and Roman sites there, so I was sure there would be lots of history for me on this trip. I signed up, paid my money, and did some research on the places I'd be visiting.

      Then in mid-April I headed south. What a difference from last year! Sunshine rather than snowstorm and generally evil weather chasing me! Searching websites before departure, I had found two that said my flight was on time. "On time" has a whole different meaning for Alitalia, however. Once at the airport I learned it was leaving an hour late. . . which turned out to be more than an hour and a half. The three hour time between flights was cut down by more than half by the time I got off the plane in Rome. I had to get to the far end of the far end of the airport by 10:35 to board my next plane. (I had not yet had enough lessons in Italian time-keeping). When I got to the gate listed on my boarding pass I was told it had been changed, but at least I only had to go back a short distance. I got there at the time listed on my boarding pass and then had to wait again for over half an hour before boarding.

I don't remember where I found this map, but the highlighted places are largely the ones we visited on the trip.

      As usual I had not managed to sleep at all on either leg of the flight, but I was apparently past tired by the time the plane arrived at the airport near Palermo, showed my passport and went out to be met by my new Elderhostel guide/shepherd. Not having checked anything, I was first out. It took the people with checked luggage some time to make it out: for some reason it was on the "international flight" carousel despite the fact that we had arrived on a domestic flight. Then we piled into the bus and headed for our hotel, which was in Mondello, a resort town near Palermo.

     After a nice buffet lunch I went up to unpack and discovered I could NOT figure out how to turn on the TV and had to call for help! It was complicated, involving interaction between cable box and TV set that had to be played in the correct sequence. It was a really lovely room with a balcony with a great view out across the harbor at a mountain I later learned was named Monte Pellegrino. I somehow stayed conscious the rest of the afternoon and through dinner. Then I actually managed to spend 9 1/2 hours in bed after no sleep since I got up Monday morning in Chicago. This was a Good Thing.

     After breakfast Wednsday we went out for an orientation walk in Mondello, looking at art nouveau buildings, finding out where to shop, etc. The tower in the town square was, like the one behind the hotel, part of a former tuna processing plant: they watched for schools of tuna from it. Before lunch we had a lecture on early Sicilian history and after lunch the afternoon's first lecture was info on and slides of mosaics we'll see another day. Then before the next class I had a cappucino in the bar--I really miss my mid-day coffee! After that we had one on "survival Italian" from Enrico. It's very phonetic, so with my crib sheet I can say quite a few things in Italian now. Understanding replies is something else entirely. We won't be spending so much time in lectures later, but they're taking it easy on our jet lag today.

      We had two lectures and group intro before lunch on Thursday and then we went to Palermo to see some of the fabulous mosaics we'd learned about, starting in the Palatine Chapel. It's in the Norman palace where the Sicilian parliament meets, so we went in a back entrance to visit it. It was built by Roger II(one of those Norman kings) and was partly decorated by Arabic mosaic workers and partly by imported Byzantine artists. Every church we visited in Sicily had Christ in this pose.
      Our next stop was La Martorana. also known as the Admiral's Church, which has a particularly interesting history: it was founded by Roger's admiral George of Antioch as Eastern Orthodox, but then there weren't any more around, so it was closed up for ages, later converted to Roman Catholic, and later yet to Eastern rite Catholic, according to our guide.

It has undergone assorted changes, but the mosaics have survived. One of them shows George of Antioch, founder and patron of the church, and the one on the left shows Christ crowning King Roger II. On the right is a view of the ceiling above the altar.
      After that we went to the archaeological museum to see the friezes from Selinunte, which we were going to visit on Saturday, and learned about them. Some of the early one from around 700 BC are in archaic style, but later ones show a transition to Classical style and more naturalistic poses by 480 BC.
      When we got back to the hotel I tried to deal with the internet connection there. Typed a fairly long group message about my flight and first couple days and my own ISP kicked me out completely with some incomprehensible nonsense. I finally learned I could read my mail, even reply with quotation, but NO way was I going to be allowed to actually type more than two lines and actually send. Weird!

      Friday we made up for some of the time we'd been sitting in lectures with a multiple-goal excursion. In the morning we headed for Palermo and picked up Giovanni, our sometimes lecturer, sometimes moving guide, drove along the harbor, then all got out for a walking tour of some churches and a market. The first one, not very impressive outside, an oratory for church meetings and a church, depending on which way you were facing, was covered inside with wonderful plaster figures. The putti reminded me strongly of those in Bavarian churches of the same period, but Giovanni didn't know what relationship might exist. These were done by Italy's master sculptor of such, Serpetto. He often "signed" his work by including a serpent somewhere, and there was one here. The sign outside said "Oratorio de St. Cita".

      In the second one, there was more of his work inside, along with paintings. In a side chapel there's some marvelous "mixed marble" work, using different colors of marble in a kind of inlay.

          "mixed marble"

In the 3rd church, the putti in the entrance were by an imitator, but those inside were by Serpetto again. This one was Brotherhood of the Rosary and had a bunch of 17th century paintings (except for one early 1700's). St. Rosalia, Palermo's patron saint, was in the group in the altar painting. The "graces" in plaster around the sides are ladies of the period.

     Then we went through a street market with all kinds of things for sale in a place that had been a market area for centuries. We came to an open area and some of us sampled boiled octopus, but it was too tough to chew up and not really tasty, unlike the fried calamari I prefer, which we had a little of at dinner that evening.. We then headed up another narrow street where we had samples of a fried chickpea thing that was very good. Hiking on to a park with marvellous trees, we were lectured on Garibaldi(it was Garibaldi Park because he did something there and yes, I just don't get excited about modern history) before we hiked(in my case trudged) on to where our bus was waiting to take us back to Mondello.
      We didn't have a lecture coming up until after 3 and I wanted to try out the swimming pool(see above), so I ate quickly and headed for my room to change. I had scouted it before, so I knew I could get to its outdoor stairs via the first floor. Grabbed towel, donned swim attire, and headed down. Water felt pretty chilly at first, but not for long. The water in the pool was salty--it's from the sea--so I was swimming without putting my face into it. There was no lifeguard, though, so I didn't swim long. I made it to the 3:30 lecture on more history and between sections I went down to the bar for cappucino. We'd had enough exercise in the morning to be ready to sit for a while.

      Saturday was going to include plenty of walking; we were headed for Selinunte, an ancient Greek city. I made sure I took my cane along; I was sure there'd be uneven footing at the least. I had forgotten how much that third "leg" helps on rough ground, particularly at the first stop at the acropolis. The city was on a hill above the sea. We had radios to listen to our guide, which meant I could take fotos and still follow what was going in. Very nice. (Later I discovered that this didn't work when there was a piece of temple in the way or the guide and main group had turned a corner in a narrow street, but most of the time it worked well, especially when we were in a crowded place.) It got hot, and I was really lagging by the time we went to lunch. Next we were going to visit the quarry all this stone came from. . . once the sheep got out of the road. Abandoned pieces of column between there and Selinunte had shown the way they moved them down.

The city had been attacked and fallen so suddenly that a lot of work was as suddenly interrupted, and in various stages, making it easier for us to see how they formed the drums they made into columns. This is a drum that was all ready to be cut free and hauled away. They'd rope it down, then drive wedges under it until it was two-thirds cut away before pulling it down, hoping it didn't break. Sometimes one did.

     Sunday's outing to Agrigento began with rain, but we were on the north coast and it's on the south coast. Traveling through the middle of the island, breaks in the slope show evidence of mudslides in the clay soil, the result of centuries of deforestation, but shooting through bus windows seldom results in good fotos. We were also temporarily stopped by sheep again 8-) I'd been to Agrigento before, my only Sicilian stop on last year's cruise, but not to the archaeological museum, which we began with. It is very impressive. Outside are the remains of the agora. Then the temple itself is housed in a former Cistercian monastery. We had lunch before going up to visit the temples. Since I had actually seen the temples before, I trailed along the road down the middle, listening when the guide was within range. I discovered I remembered more from last year than I thought I had heard.

      Temple of Concordia

     The next day's morning lectures were on Sicilian cooking and on puppetry. Chickpea panelle(the fritters we had in the market and also at the hotel once) turn up in a belt across the Med. Felafel, too.
      Afterwards, since I was having a mainly sit-down day and I had time before leaving for lunch, I decided to go look for the trail to the lighthouse I'd been told about.

      Mt. Gallo

After a false start, I did find it, but found out I was soon cut off from the sea by tall thick bushes for long enough that I was getting bored as well as wondering how long a walk it really was, so I turned back, took a couple more fotos including the one of Mt. Gallo, which the lighthouse is apparently around the point of, and had a cappucino in the bar.
      Then we were off to lunch at Nora's. She feeds Elderhostel groups that come to the area a typical Sicilian meal each year. She fed us several things I have no idea of the names for, but the pasta was absolutely wonderful! I not only had three helpings of it, but I think I have the recipe for it, or close to it, in a recipe book I got for the cooks in my daughter's family.

     Then we headed for the puppet theater and it began to pour. Fortunately we didn't have to scurry TOO far from our bus. The story was easy enough to follow as mime once Enrico had translated what the woman who played the player piano and produced sound effects had to tell us about it. Those puppets weigh over 30 pounds apiece and they really moved a lot, including duelling very actively. The plays are based on 11th-12th century French romance, especially on Charlemagne legends and the Chanson de Roland. 19th-century enthusiasm for chivalric traditions, storytellers, and puppettteers overlap considerably. Puppet shows and storytellers have lost much of their audience to TV, but I thought this was more fun than the majority of TV shows 8-) UNESCO has recognized them as a cultural treasure to be at least partially supported. This troupe has toured all over the US, too, including Chicago.

      Then later we had live music from a local band. The newsstand guy and two friends, at least one a baker and I'm not sure about the other. The music was very lively and most of the group joined in dancing the tarentella.
     The rain really pounded late in the day and most, if all all night. Some drove in under the doors in the breakfast room; they were mopping it up in the morning. It hadn't really quit when we set off for what was supposed to be an outdoor day, with the first stop up a mountain of sorts in a medieval town, Erice. When we got over there, it couldn't be seen for the cloud perched on it. What with wet, sloping cobblestone streets and poor visibility, our guides didn't want us to risk it, so we were going to an art museum in Trapani instead. We had actually been going to come to Trapani also, to see the centuries-old salt pans and windmills and visit the associated museum, where we were also going to eat lunch.
     After lunch we boarded our trusty bus and headed away from the coast uphill to visit another ancient Greek settlement, Segesta. When we arrived, I could see the temple up yet another hill to our right. It was probably begun about 426 BC, but then remained unfinished until there were fresh conflicts with Selinunte in 416 BC. That wasn't our first goal, however. A shuttle bus took us up the even higher hill on the left, to the remains of the mostly unexcavated city and the theater. It was so cold and windy up there that for the first time on the trip, I wished I had my jacket liner on under my rain jacket! The view from the theater was terrific, even on this cold, gray day. We could see the cloud-wrapped mountain where Erice hid, among other things.

After visiting the theater and learning more about Greek theaters, the guide and others climbed further up to see the remains of Arab and later Norman buildings made from stones taken from the ruins, but I decided I'd climbed up enough already before I got up to the level they reached. The guide was within radio range while she talked about the Arabs, but whatever she had to say about the Normans was cut off by the stone walls between us. Back down at the agora excavations we got on a shuttle bus with some Germans I visited with a bit and were going to Taormina later, too, just as we were. In fact, we kept encountering German groups everywhere. Back down at the shop site I found out there were too many steps on the way up to the temple for my tired legs and had a cappucino instead.
      Since Wednesday morning's lecture was all Mafia--as if I hadn't heard too much about them already--I thought I might sleep late. Nope. Took my time and got upstairs to breakfast late and really took my time, though. I wanted to e-mail my niece who finds them fascinating and tell her what I was playing hooky from, but this morning the computer system was down! It started to rain seriously for a while, but the sun came out again during the morning's second class, WW2 Italy.
      Wednesday's big event was in the afternoon: Monreale. When we got to the bus parking lot, we were informed there were 90 steps up to the cathedral!! But there were taxis for the faint of heart and leg. There were enough steps to deal with once up there anyway. These were the some of the mosaics we'd had a lecture on previously and were really impressive. Even the floors were mosaics. After admiring them and taking a number of fotos, I went out to admire the columns in the cloister.

      I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do all day Thursday in Cefalu, but the sun was shining, so there I was on the bus, trying to take a couple shots out the window that would be usable, when Enrico handed out this map. . . and there was a castle on it! There was no way I was going to be able to reach it, though. There was a bus or something to the monastery up on the rock, but the castle was on the rock on top of the rock and it was not something I was going to be able to climb. Our bus driver stopped before we got there so we could get a nice long shot, and the Norman cathedral really does stand out. I knew it also had mosaics, but it was going to suffer in comparison to Monreale, even if it did also have a neat founding story.

We walked along together up to the Duomo square, which was to be our meeting place later. On the way, I saw what looked like a piece of castle up the hill! But it must have been one of the towers on the part of the hill where the first city had been located; it wasn't far enough to be the castle itself. After Enrico specified which corner of the Duomo square would be our meeting place and set a time, we went off in various directions. I headed for the bastion to take some fotos, but first I stopped in a gelato shop. There must REALLY be a lot of German tourists that come here; the flavors were labeled in German! Later I found a cafe with breaded grilled calamari on the menu, but it was too early for them to serve lunch just then. I also got into a conversation with a bunch of Germans down by the harbor. I traveled to Sicily to practice my German!

      Then I went up to have a look at the Norman cathedral, which was reputed to have some lovely mosaics around the back altar area and discovered all but the main aisle was roped off, so I just took a few fotos there before going back to that cafe in search of lunch. I expected rings but got heads! That was different. It also totally freaked out one of my fellow Elderhostellers at the next table 8-) They looked weird but tasted good.

When I got back to the square and all the others had gathered, I learned we were not going back to where our bus had left us, but along the coast toward the lighthouse to a different place. It was a pretty walk, but I couldn't keep up with the main group--as usual.

      Friday morning it was time to say good-bye to Mondello and the familiar mountain across the bay, our home away from home for over half the trip, and head for the other side of the island. It was a long ride, and part of the time Enrico entertained and informed us with a variety of information. Then Enna, a hilltop city on our way to the day's main destination, began to appear in the distance. It's the highest provincial capital in Sicily. After we stopped for lunch, it wasn't far to our destination, Villa Casale. (There's a video of it, too.)

Where we got out of our bus, however, was still quite a hike from the actual Roman Villa Casale, along the road and down the hill from us. Partway down the hill, I realized I was going to need my cane and had forgotten it in the bus, but Enrico went back and brought it to me. I REALLY needed it that day. Not only was the path down rough, if a big improvement on stairs, the alternative, but there were steps up and down inside, where it was really hot, even though the day wasn't, because of the plastic roof over the excavation. Of course, a roof was needed to protect the mosaics as they were uncovered and cleaned, but cool it was not! The first two pairs of rooms we saw were bedrooms with erotic scenes on the floors and anterooms with geometric designs. One once called a "dancing" room is probably the rape of the Sabine women.

Even the latrine has a mosaic floor. The mosaic floor of girls in bikinis is a puzzle. They're obviously engaged in sports, but Greek women didn't, much less dressed in this little. The long hall with all the African animals seems to be either a hunt or a procession showing off the extent of Roman power or both. The next section involved steps to get in with more inside and I looked at the hill I had to climb back up. I half sat on a wall with a couple other tired people and listened as long as the guide was in range, then started to trudge up that long hill.

      Back in the bus heading for Syracuse we could see a really black storm somewhere ahead of us. I wasn't sure where we were compared to Syracuse because the road wasn't a straight line in between, but wherever it was, it looked nasty. I was really exhausted and looking forward to getting off the bus and into the next hotel. . . until we got to the next hotel. The Hotel de la Torre in Mondello had thoroughly spoiled me for anything less. This was less.

     Saturday morning we began with a visit to the archaeological museum, at least to part of it. No pictures were allowed and there often was much too little room for everyone to see what the guide was talking about at once, so I was often seeing the last thing she'd been explaining while she was talking about another. It wasn't a lot different from the one in Agrigento and not as extensive. They had a "miracle" nearby a few years ago and when they started digging the foundation for a new church, they found an incredible number of votive statues of Demeter; Greek mass production via slip molding. I had to explain what I meant, and my first impression-"slip-molding!" was correct.     Then we had a short bus ride to a parking lot just before Ortygia. I walked so slowly I totally lost the group despite the radios, but Enrico came back and found me and the other slow walkers yet again. Of course, stopping to take a couple fotos on the bridge did't speed me up. I skipped the stop at the remains of the Temple of Apollo the others had made and headed straight up the street toward the Duomo square(we had maps) and they soon caught up and passed me again. The narrow streets kept cutting off what our guide was saying, both before and after the open square with the fountain with Diana/Artemis in the middle. Naturally I had to get a close-up of the archer! That bow wouldn't bring down anything bigger than a rabbit, but of course, she was a goddess. . .

     Before we split up to meet later in front of the Duomo, I had asked for directions to a good seafood restaurant. When I got there, I found a couple other group members there. I ordered calamari again, but made sure I was getting rings. It was delicious! I think it was the best calamari I ever had, but I don't get it often enough to be sure 8-) There were two young cats prowling around under the tables looking up longingly, but I told them I was sure they got more fresh seafood than I did and didn't offer to share. Then I had a cappucino to finish off. As I got back to the square I saw several people eating gelato in front of--surprise!-- a place with a really nice selection of flavors. Best of all, there was a bench there with room for me to sit while I ate. Then I met the others at the Duomo and started back before the main group, since I had marked a waypoint in my GPS Finder when I got off the bus in the first place, but when I stopped for postcards, they caught up and passed me again.

    From there we went up to Noto, and on the way into the town from the park where we disembarked, I paused to buy some nuts and when I set out after the others, the guide's voice was breaking up on my radio and soon vanished around a corner somewhere. It was a nice day, I was in a park with many benches, and the point of this excursion seemed to be primarily Baroque architecture, which I actually know a good bit about already, so I decided to sit down and catch up on my trip diary and foto record and eat some of my peanuts and hazelnuts. I'd walked enough for the day.

     Sunday we were headed up into the mountains again, this time to Buscemi. The bus left us off by what looked like a Baroque church, then we started walking further uphill, paused by the tourist office/war memorial, then went into a former church where we saw a movie about Buscemi's living history museum. (The website is FULL of info about it.) Rather than all grouped together in an open-air museum, these exhibits are in different buildings around the town. It was a big change from all the archaeological sites and churches we'd been visiting on this trip, and was very much the sort of thing I include in my self-planned trips.
          (I thought I should include ONE foto of myself.)

     When we left we headed for a restaurant on a farm--at least it had been a farm, but didn't look much like one except that it was out in the country. The place where we ate had once been a stable, though it certainly didn't look it. We sat at really long tables and had many courses.
    Monday morning we were moving on to Taormina after our visit to the archaeological zone in Syracuse, so I was mostly packed before I went to bed. After breakfast we walked over to the park. As long as we were in the open, I could hear our guide on the radio, but after while she was out of range much of the time. I was used to this by now 8-) I caught up at the Ear of Dionysios, this cave.

     It's called that because, according to legend, the tyrant Dionysios could stand at one end and listen to even whispered conversations of prisoners. The name was first used by the artist Caravaggio, however. I caught up with the group again at the Greek theater where the guide was explaining things about it, so I found out that one of the caves up at its top was where the Greek acqueduct came out. I was still taking fotos as they left and was soon left well behind again, with no idea where they had gone, but Enrico found me again and pointed me the right direction, but it was a while before I was anywhere near them at the Roman ampitheater, which was nowhere near as fully excavated as the Greek theater. It was large!

     Then after a potty and souvenir(really trashy stuff!) stop where I found gelato at the last moment, we finally got into our bus and headed for the Agriturismo Trinite(named for an old deconsecrated church nearby) partway up the slope of Mt. Etna for our lunch. It was getting grayer and grayer; the volcano was invisible behind clouds again. On the way there we were stuck in traffic so long I started on my trip diary, which I can't normally do in the bus. Road construction. Gee, just like home! I was so tired I almost slept on the bus as we continued on our way to our last hotel. This is a MAJOR change from the last place!!! It was almost palatial. And then at dinner I got to CHOOSE my food!! I didn't have to hide my plate to avoid yet another tomato pasta!
    Tuesday morning we were going up a mountain, so I took my jacket and carried it all day. We drove along the coast, then we zigzagged up and up to a bus parking lot where we got on a smaller shuttle bus to zigzag up even higher to a part of Taormina we still had to walk uphill from! I did finally get up to the theater the Greeks had carved out of the hill, as usual, with a terrific view of Mt. Etna. The Romans, of course, had to have their blood sports, so they cut out the lower rows of seats and built a wall across the front, part of which survived. That's why there is brick in places.

We weren't in the highest part of Taormina even here. High above us was another peak with a monastery and--even further up--a castle. I was told it was Aragonese, but the map calls it Saracen. Of course, it was unreachable, at least for me on this day, which seems to be the case for any castle I catch sight of on the island.
     I managed to stay with the group for a while as we looked at the Catalan Gothic palace which later became a courthouse, went into its courtyard, which was located where first the Greek agora, then the Roman forum had been and then went inside to get maps and saw a display of large puppets similar to the ones we had seen at the puppet theater. As we continued up the main street, I was still close enough to the group to learn that an imposing doorway led to what had once been the HQ on Sicily of the Knights of Malta and was now a disco.

On our last day in Sicily we were going across to the mainland to visit a museum in Reggio Calabria and have lunch within sight of Scylla and Charybdis. We got to Messina fairly quickly, but to get there we had to spend a LONG time sitting in the line for the ferry. Once across the strait, we headed for Reggio Calabria and a museum. They had some nice dioramas. After looking around a bit we were admitted into the sanctum sanctorum to see the almost unique(there is one other somewhere) bronze statues found in the sea by a scuba diver who saw a hand sticking out of the sea bottom.

No fotos were allowed, so I just have a postcard showing them. The detail work is really amazing. Lost-wax casting and over 6 feet tall. Heroes, apparently. The poses seem to indicate holding a shield and perhaps a spear(both missing).
    Then we went up the coast to Scylla's point for lunch and along the way I got a good shot of Mt. Etna across the way.

    The rock markng Scylla's side of the narrowest part of the strait now has a castle on top. The castle, Ruffo castle, (a family name) is 16th century, a pirate defense. It has also been a prison. Now sometimes meetings or seminars are held there. The point of Sicily is visible from here and I took some fotos of that as well.
     Then we had another long wait to get back on the ferry again. This one was considerably bigger than the first one; it had two vehicle decks(I don't know how they load it), so it was really a LONG way up to the lounge and deck on top, which was the point where I realized how much bigger it was.

     Back in Messina we had a bit of bus tour, then visited the Duomo, originally Norman, but it's been destroyed--once by earthquake and once by war--and restored twice, as close to the original as possible. It has a fantastic organ with pipes in six different ranks around the church. The clock tower has several levels of things that change with the time. I asked about one that seems to be a different church. It is, and I took ITS foto, too. It's up on the hill and there's some miracle story. The church on the clock tower only appears after noon. A couple other figures moved while we were there in the square.

     Back at the hotel that evening, we started dinner at 7:30 because we were leaving so early, but we didn't actually get out of there before 9:00 because we had to wait and wait for dessert and some toasting. Dessert came in with sparklers on the cake.
     I set my alarm for 2:30 in order to eat breakfast and be on the bus by 4:15. 2:30 in Sicily = 7:30 PM in Chicago. It was going to be a long time with no sleep!

     To my shock, we actually did leave at 4:15! On the way to Catania we could see lava flowing down the side of Mt. Etna near the top. It had been doing that for a few days, but it had to be dark to see it.
     The flight to Rome was more or less on time, but the one back to the US was not. I'll leave out the details, just saying I prefer Lufthansa.


Note: If any of the presumably factual information included above is wrong, blame it on the various guides I got it from 8-)

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