Palermo - Who Knew? 1-16-16

We got back to Palermo last night and after getting the car parked stayed in for the evening.  So today we were up around 8:30 and after a nice breakfast out on the streets by 9:00.  It rained during the night and into the morning so the streets were damp.  But as we got out the sun showed a bit and our walk across the old part of the city was very pleasant.
Our professed goal was the Capella Palatina, created in 1130 by the Norman King Roger II, who by all accounts had the most enlightened court in all of Europe at the time. Our walk over took us right through the heart of old Palermo along one of its two major streets, the vaguely east-west Via Vittorio Emanuele and up to the former royal palace.  Along the way however there were things to see, places to go, people to watch.  Visually Palermo is not a really pretty city, things look kind of rundown and a bit gritty.  But there are pockets of beauty and they enliven scene.  Our first diversion was to go into a baroque church and then through one of the street markets, La Vucciria, the best known of the markets. The church interior overall was kind of restrained but the side chapels were over the top Rococo.
As a bit of a reminder though, it contained the tomb of one of the Sicilian prosecutors who took on the Mafia in the 1980's and paid with his life.  His tomb was a very plain white marble slab on top of a slightly larger black marble slab, and on the black lip there must have been more than 50 pieces of paper with written notes, hopefully thanking him for his effort to make life better for the Sicilians.  La Vucciria is located in a very narrow
 street and seems to be a combination of brocantes and stalls selling fruits, vegetables, fish, spices, and meats.  It's about 2 blocks long and appeared to be just getting started as we walked through.
As I mentioned before Via Vittorio Emanuele is one main street and the other is Via Maqueda, where they intersect is literally the old center of Palermo, called the Quattro Canti (four corners?)  At each of the corners the buildings are truncated into concave facades containing a fountain and a statue of Phillip, King of Spain (the man had an ego).  It is reminiscent of some plazas in Madrid where the rulers were lauded.  Just off the Quattro Canti is an impressive fountain called, Fontana Pretoria. It was designed for a Florentine villa and somehow ended up being
moved to Palermo.  It is a tri-level fountain, circular in design with four stairways, from the lower level to the upper level, dividing it into pie shaped quadrants.  It has sculptures of nude figures all over the fountain and was called "the fountain of shame" at some point because of all the nudity.  It's lovely!

Just to the south of the fountain, in the next piazza, is located the Santa Maria dell'Ammiraglio (aka La Martorana).  Built in 1143, it is a visual riot of fresco, inlaid stone, and mosaic religious iconography.  Not a large church it was built in a Greek Cross design and then later enlarged at one end to it's present size.  It combines doses of Arabic, Norman and Byzantine design into a Baroque type of assemblage that almost overwhelms the eyes.  One lovely detail is that each one of the columns in the church is a unique stone, color, or shape.  About the only thing I've seen that comes close to opulence of stonework is the Taj Mahal.  You have to sit for a while in several places to be able to take it all in.
These sites were all within a 10 minute walk of our hotel and it only took us 2 hours to get that far. Another 10 minute walk finally got us up to our goal for the day, the Capella Palatina. It is a veritable jewel box of mosaic biblical stories and superbly crafted walls and floor of inlaid semi-precious stone all from the 12th century. It is actually smaller than La Martorana because it was a private chapel but it is even more opulently decorated, if that seems
possible.  Everywhere you look there are mosaics studded with gold tiles and semi-precious stones.  The design is definitely Norman with Romanesque arches but overlaid with Byzantine opulence.  I'm running out of words to describe it.  In the cupola of the crossing and on the dome at the back chapel are images of the Christ Pantocrator (one of the names for God) in mosaic and considered to be the most iconic depiction in the Byzantine oeuvre.
Just below the upper clerestory windows running around the length of the chapel, is the Old Testament creation story, done in mosaic. Just below Christ on the back chapel is the image of  the Madonna quite beautifully rendered, and almost looking as if it were a later depiction.  And images of the saints are a dime a dozen, them and angels.  There is also a marble candelabrum in the chapel that is the oldest Romanesque work of art in all of Sicily.
One of these churches would have been the treasure of a city and in the space of half a mile we ventured into two of them. It makes me wonder what else must be hidden here waiting to dazzle the eyes.
We finally worked our way out into a sunny afternoon around 2:00 and decided it was time for lunch. So we walked back towards our hotel with directions towards a few selected restaurants supplied by the hotel.  We never were able to find the one we wanted, but I noticed a restaurant where it seemed many people were going in, so we went in too.  We must have looked like we had just arrived from Mars because we could not figure out how the restaurant worked.  We milled around for several minutes getting in peoples way until a nice gentleman said it was a self-service place.  He told me to order stuff from the woman at the counter and told Deb to grab an empty table.  So while Deb staked out a table, I went to the counter and pointed at things.  I did know that we wanted some Arancini, rice balls stuffed with meat and veg then deep fried, so I pointed at those and then at another little bunch of things that came in a minimum order of 5.  That plus a bottle of water and another of beer set up back 6 euros.  When those came we started eating and figured we better order some other things as well.  Which turned out to be a good thing as we got there just before they shut everything down for the afternoon.  I ordered us an Involtini of Swordfish and one of pork and another beer, oh and by the way save us a couple of those Panna Cotta, one with the Pistachio creme and one with the raspberry sauce.  The people were so nice, they laughed at us and we laughed at us and had a great time.  We were the last customers out and it was an experience I'll always remember.

Agrigento - Going from Highlight to Highlight 1-15-16

We awoke in Agrigento this morning and had a nice if limited breakfast at our B&B, mostly pastry type items and some toast, and of course coffee and tea.  I've been drinking coffee in the morning since this is Italy, when in Rome, etc.  Of course I have capuchino and not the little bullets that most Italians seem to drink.  It was a pretty morning and so we made our way down to the parking for the valley of the temples.  First thing to know, it's not a valley but more a mesa or plateau upon which the original inhabitants chose to build.

Dioscuri Temple

The valley of the temples has the ruins of seven temples within an area of about a half-mile square, we were able to see the five which are contiguous. The Greek temples are situated along a bit of a ridge at one side of a mesa, while the Roman temples are kind of sporadically spaced across the mesa.  At the end of the mesa are the oldest ruins from around 600 BC while the majority the more complete temples are around 400 BC.  Many of the temples were incorrectly attributed to the wrong deities and now they can definitively identify only 2 of the Greek temples and 1 Roman temple.  No matter, as what they have is truly impressive,  the temples of  Hercules, Juno, and Concordia are largely standing as far as pillars and some internal structure are concerned.

Jupiter Temple base corner

The temple of Jupiter is mostly a field of fallen stone but it was so large that the area seems to be a couple acres at least.  In a reconstructed drawing of the temple it showed "Telemons" which were sculptures of

Telemone

warriors who were captured and subsequently enslaved.  Each one was about 15 feet tall and they were less than a third of the size of the columns.  It was one of the largest known in the Greek world at the time.

Concordia Temple with Icarus

The temple of Concordia, was named after a peace agreement that was signed after a large battle between the victorious inhabitants of the city and the defeated Carthaginians.  They now state that it is not dedicated to Concordia after all but they don't know just who.  Same thing with the temple of Juno, it's not to her but they're not sure to whom it was dedicated.
Most of the preservation is the result of a Brit, Alexander Hardcastle, who visited the area in the early 20th century and was so smitten that he settled amongst the ruins and built a house.  He then spent the rest of his life and much of his money financing the restoration of he temples.  Finally the Italian government recognized the value and has taken over the site and funds the ongoing restoration.  This is no small task as the stone from which

Hercules Temple

 the temples are built is a really soft sandstone chocked through with sea shells.  It weathers horribly and much of the stone is riddled with erosion caused pockmarks and cavities.  Many of the columns are stabilized with new material to give them rigidity and structure.  Many of the pieces laying on the ground are supported with brick foundations, keeping this area stabilized must be enormously expensive.

Juno Temple

As we were driving over yesterday Deb mentioned that the valley was famous for the almond trees that go into bloom in February and March, and we were thinking how fun it would be to see them, but alas we were too early.  Well today we got lucky and there were a few trees in early bloom so we happily surprised.  The blooms are very fragrant and quite beautiful.  But not only almonds, there were blooming wildflowers all over the area.
We also saw a species of goat that is indigenous to the area that has the most incredible horns.  They look like corkscrews instead of curved daggers.
We spent over 3 hours just wandering around the area and being enthralled with a sense of the history of the area.

The Villa of Roman Mosaics 1-14-16

We had to change our plans as I've mentioned, so we decided we'd rather see the Greek temple at Agrigento than spend the day trekking on Mt. Etna.  It was our original plan to see it the second day but that fell apart with the car.  So we backtracked, but on the way we decided we would stop at the Villa del Casale in Piazza Armerina.  This led us up into the hills west of Syracuse and over the interior on beautiful mountain roads.  Along the way we had wonderful views of  Mount Etna in some recompense for our not being able to spend the day there. Also as we drove along we noted

 

cactus plants everywhere and at one point even saw where they were being cultivated. They are very large and it appears that the farmers may used them as fences in certain instances. After a couple hour drive we arrived at the site. The villa contains what by some accounts is the finest group of Roman floor mosaics in the world.  I would believe it, there are more that 30 rooms with almost completely intact floors. They were buried by a 12th century mudslide and only rediscovered in the late 19th century.  Fully uncovering them took place in the 50's and 60's and is an ongoing project.
The full extent of the villa is immense, just one room, the corridor of hunting scenes is over 300 feet long by 20 feet wide and it is a small part of the complete villa.  Each room has a a unique design and all of them are complex and multi-colored.  It was built around a courtyard that looks to be at least 100 feet on each side and has rooms off of all sides.  It also contains a pond in the center which would have had running water to provide a serene atmosphere for the inhabitants.

One particularly famous room is called the "Hall of the Female Gymnasts in Bikinis" and it contains 9 women each of whom must be 8 feet in length. They are dressed in very brief athletic costumes that look very much like bikinis.
There are so many rooms that trying to talk about each one is impossible but there are rooms that also portray scenes from the sea,  and additional hunting and mythical depictions.
One particular room had a scene from Homer's Odyssey where Jason and his crew were trapped in the den of the Cyclopes, but in the Roman version he had 3 eyes.  We had no idea that it would be so extensive and we ended up spending over 2 hours just walking through, reading the descriptions (luckily in in English as well as Italian), and being dazzled.
After our visit we had another 2 hours drive to get us over to Agrigento, where tomorrow we hope to spend the morning visiting the "valley of temples".  Another world heritage site, containing several Greek temple ruins and at least one still standing.

Greeks and Romans in One Go 1-13-16

Today was a banner day, we got to see both a Greek amphitheatre and a Roman coliseum within about 100 yards of each other and we had ricotta cheese in three different forms.  I don't believe one can do that anywhere else in the world but here in Syracuse. Our hotel serves breakfasts as part of the room and this morning our waiter had put out two rounds of ricotta one was in it's natural state and the other had been baked, we've never had baked ricotta before but it was quite creamy and rich with a bit of nutty overtone.
We are virtually at the southeastern tip of the city and the archeological park is in the northwestern end of the city, so we fortified ourselves with an indulgent breakfast for the journey over but it's only about 30-40 minute walk.  The city is not all that large.  We had a beautiful sunny day, warm enough that we only wore sweaters for outer covering.  Truly a Mediterranean climate.

The third century BC. Greek amphitheatre was the largest one in the ancient world and hosted several premiers of plays by the playwright Aeschylus.  In 1914, the city revived performances of original
 greek plays and every April since then there has been a festival in the amphitheatre.  Also in the park are several caves created from rock quarrying activity used to supply the various building projects during Greek and Roman times.  They were then used as prisons, a very unappealing prospect.  At  the eastern end of the park is the tomb of Archimedes, the ancient engineer that stated "with a large enough lever I could move the world".  

Part of the park is closed for the winter,due to low visitor numbers, but we were able to walk over to the coliseum and spend quite a few minutes walking around and drinking in the atmosphere. As we walked down one of the ramps on to the floor I was contemplating what it must have been like
for the gladiators who walked along there thinking "I wonder if I'll walk out today or not?"  It must have been pretty grim walking in there to thousands of shouting spectators hoping for blood.
After visiting the park we walked a few blocks to a little restaurant where we had a very good lasagna and a bottle of Nero d'Avola wine.  Deb followed up with a ricotta gelato (the third form) while I had a cannoli, both were quite delicious.

Following lunch we went across the street and visited the archeological museum.  It contains artifacts covering about 40 centuries of Sicilian history and has fantastic Greek and Roman objects way out of proportion to its geographic size.  I've never seen so many together in one place before.  The Louvre probably has more red and black Greek pottery overall but this little museum has every kind of artifact one could imagine, from prehistoric pygmy elephants

, through the Greek, Roman, and very early medieval periods.  There is another museum that addresses the Arabic occupation period, but that will have to be for another time.  It was nearly sundown when we finished up with the museum and I'd guess that we were the last visitors to leave because all the docents were
 sort of hanging around at the front door as we left, although nobody said anything or rushed us whatsoever.   We had another nice walk back in the twilight and had a quiet evening in the hotel.

Modica to Siracusa 1-12-16

Today was what we hoped our visit to Sicily would really be like.  We started the day in Modica, our room at the Modica Old Town Rooms was really nice.  It was quiet, very clean, and spacious.  We had an appointment with a the man from whom we commissioned a belt yesterday evening.  A few weeks ago I bought a silver Navajo belt buckle from a brocante in Paris, very cheaply.  Deb had read that leather products were very well priced in Sicily so we thought we would try to get a belt made for me.  We passed a shop yesterday and the man said yes
he could make a belt, and the prices was really reasonable.  So we gave him the buckle and he said come back in an hour. But we suggested that we could return in the morning at 9:00 and he was very happy with that idea.  So we came back and I tried the belt so that he could figure out where to make the holes.  The belt was really long so he cut it to length and made holes while we went out for a cup of tea and an espresso.  When we got back the belt was ready, so I put it on, we paid and thanked them for the friendly service.  Then we loaded the car and headed out of Modica for Siracusa (Syracuse).
It was about an hour's drive of which half was on back roads through the countryside.  We passed many small towns and farms and marvelled at how green the countryside is in January.  But it's really tropical in the southeast, warm but not hot and when the breeze comes up it is a little cool.  
We found our hotel which sits directly across the street from the Mediterranean and almost at the southern tip of the small island at the bottom of Siracusa.  It's the old town historic center and reminds us so very much of Venice without canals.  Beautiful old buildings, both renaissance, and baroque, the streets kind of run down in appearance, but with beautiful courtyards on the inside.
We found a nice little restaurant for lunch that had an extensive seafood menu and settled in for a relaxed little lunch.  I think the strain associated with the car and having to spend another day racing across the island must have taken its toll, because we had a bit of a contretemps earlier and the lunch served as a way to ramp things down.
After lunch we walked through our quarter looking at buildings and visiting two historic areas.  The first is the duomo which was built over the site of a Greek temple to Minerva from the 5th century BC.  It was our first encounter with ancient Greek architecture, even if it had been goobered over by the Catholic church, the columns are beautiful.  After that visit we walked up to the northern tip of the island and looked at the ruins of another Greek temple, this one to Apollo.  There was a foundation, one standing wall and a line of columns still standing.
It was getting towards sunset by then so we walked back to the hotel along the eastern seawall surrounding the island and got there around dark.

Plan B in Sicily 1-11-16

Spent a restless night gnawing on the auto problem, really uselessly because nothing could be done, but hey...  It is difficult to express how warmly and graciously the Montalbanos (our hosts) treated us and how much help they really gave us.  All I can say is that I will never stay any place else if I ever return to Sciacca.  They own the Conte Luna B&B, it is spotless, extremely well located, quiet and they make you feel like part of the family.  His daughter Christina, speaks English and went out of her way to help us communicate with her father, Mr. Montalbano.
When I got up I went down to the B&B reception area and talked with our host, actually we kind of piece together a bit of French, a bit of Italian, and a bit of English, and we decided to call the rental company early to get things sorted out.  He called and talked with them for several minutes, saying what I'll never know, and then passed the phone to me.  I talked with the agent at the airport in Palermo and it was agreed that I would come up and they would do a car exchange.  So rather than let the entire day get away by riding the bus up to the airport, we opted for a taxi which would take us from Sciacca to the airport in Palermo for 100 euros.   Curiously enough that about what it cost us to go to the airport in Denver by taxi so we jumped at it.
They have a friend, Salvatore, who is a private limousine company and so he took us to the airport.  We arrived around noon and got the paperwork done to do the exchange, so we were on the road shortly before 1:00pm.
To get our schedule back in synch we had to drive all the way across Sicily from Palermo in the northwest to Modica in the southeast via Syracusa, literally diagonally across the island.  It took us about four and half hours and we arrived in Modica around 5:00. Our trip took us just south of Mount Etna so we had super views of the volcano. it had been our our itinerary but we'll have to skip it this time so that we can see the Greek temples at Agrigento.
The sun was still up a little when we arrived so we got ourselves situated and took a walk in the twilight.  It will possibly be an expensive little episode with the car, but I did purchase insurance through the booking agent and hopefully it will reimburse us for the expenses.

First day in Sicily

We had a totally unremarkable trip down to Sicily today, the Metro and busses were right on time, so we had time to kill in the airport. The flight left right on time and we arrived a little early in Palermo. We got our car and and headed out to Sciacca in the bright sunshine, perfect.
And then we got to the outskirts of Sciacca and the car decided that enough was enough.  So at the moment we're stranded in Sciacca, the clutch seems to be burned completely out. I called roadside assistance thanks to an incredibly nice man that I accosted going into his apartment while I was trying to follow impossible instructions from a tomtom driving map, on foot.
Then he called our B&B who was so kind as to send a car over for us, and they even waited until the wrecker arrived. Tomorrow I'll have to try to sort it out with the car rental company, otherwise we may be spending a few more days in Sciacca. But not all is lost because it's a lovely town.   We walked around town after getting situated in our B&B and had a lovely dinner in a small osteria just next to the B&B