I was up early this morning for some reason, so I got to watch Palermo waking up from the verandah. As we sailed in, we passed a long street lined with beautiful seaside palazzos. The water was full of fisherman out for the morning.
We hooked up with the HOHO in Palermo because it could get us all the way to Monreale. It was drizzling when we started but it wasn't too bad. We rode around Palermo a bit and then out of town and up to Monreale. The cathedral was built in Norman times - 1185ish and it's almost totally decorated by mosaics. The mosaics are really incredible. At the front is a huge picture of Jesus. All around are Bible scenes so worshippers could see the scripture instead of just hear it. -James
Some of the views on the ride up:
First, we strolled down the street to take in the views from the mountain:
One of many side streets that I could have happily spent time exploring. Just not enough hours in the day (or the ports!).
The outside of the church is pretty simple, giving you no real indication of what you'll find inside!
Everything I had read about Palermo said that if you only have limited time in Palermo that you should leave Palermo and go to Monreale. We had planned to take a bus up and do it on our own, but decided to make it a family day and go with the Hop On Hop Off. There would two lines that would take us around Palermo and one that went up to Monreale. Monreale is definitely worth the trip. There are stunning views from the mountain, back down the valley and out to the sea, and the cathedral mosaics are truly spectacular.
There are mosaics covering almost every square inch of the interior. When you first walk in, the first impression is that everything is gold but closer inspection reveals a variety of colors.
The ceiling...
Today we went to Palermo, Sicily. We took a Hop on Hop off bus up to Monte Reale with an awesome church with cool mosaics. Each mosaic tile was less than a cubic inch! Then we ate, whoops, never mind - we waited at this restaurant for two hours before leaving. the we strolled through a market and got the best nectarine ever! We tried to get gelato. Rudy got super grainy chocolate and I got watermelon with watermelon seeds. UGH! When we got on the ship, we got ready for dinner and then went to dinner. After dinner we went to a pretty boring concert and we're going to bed early so I can get up early. -Brady
I tried to zoom in to give some sense of the immensity of the work. A huge masterpiece, all constructed out of these tiny pieces. And, all completed in twelve years!
After soaking up in the inside, we headed out to the tower.
Today was were in Palermo. We got on the HOHO and rode it to the cathedral and in the front there was a giant mosaic of Jesus. After that we got gelato then we rode the HOHO down to another cathedral and it had a lot of silver in it. Then we went to the market and I got a peach. Then we got back on the bus and rode it back to the port and got gelato and went back to the ship. Back to the gelato - it was horrible. Brady licked his and threw it away and mine was also bad so we got more gelato and it was better. -Rudy
If you look closely, you can see all four of us in the tower:
We stopped for gelato in the square outside of the cathedral before boarding the bus back down to Palermo. Palermo is in a bit of a sad state. We saw building that were bombed in WWII that have never been rebuilt, but not in the sense that they're trying to commemorate anything. Just that they don't have the funds to rebuild. Between the war the the subsequent power of the mafia, Palermo has had a tough time.
Back on the bus...
Palermo opera house:
We did make a stop at the Palermo Cathedral as well, which was rather different than Monreale! Still quite an imposing structure, with a different flavor inside. Originally built in 1185, this building was supplemented over the next several hundred years with a variety of artistic and architectural "improvements." I still thought it was a neat building, but everything I read seemed appalled at the mishmash of Norman architecture with Gothic turrets and a Renaissance dome.
Silver urn in the chapter of Saint Rosalia, patron of Palermo.
I was amazed at the detail in this tiny sculpture. You can see how small it is tucked in a niche above a doorway, in the second picture:
All of the signage in the church is in Italian (reasonably so). Using our very rudimentary understanding, some basic common sense, and relying quite a bit on cognates, we were able to determine that this was a calendar of sorts. We recognized some of the signs of the zodiac as well. Upon further reading after, I learned that it's a 'heliometer' that was installed in 1690. A hole in one of the domes acts as a pinhole camera, projecting an image of the sun onto the floor at solar noon. The line runs precisely north-south, and the ends of the line are the position for the summer and winter solstices.
Some more of the buildings around town...
We decided we'd walk from the Cathedral to a HOHO stop for the other line, and stop for lunch on the way. We ducked into what looked like a good, local pizza joint. It was crowded with Italians eating family style pasta dishes but had an open table for six. We ordered our drinks and our pizzas, since we hadn't had pizza yet, and settled in. And time - ticked - slowly - by. The proprietor spoke only very rudimentary English. We speak less than rudimentary Italian. After one conversation, we ordered a round of some sort of fried appetizer that we saw at a another table. After another, we assured that it would just be 5 more minutes for our pizza. Finally, we had to break the news that we couldn't wait any longer. The owner was very apologetic, and didn't make us pay for anything. We left, still pretty hungry, but at least feeling like we weren't being swindled for being tourists. He truly did seem to feel bad. I really wished I spoke more Italian so we could have understood what happened; the best we could figure was that he didn't have a pizza oven so relied on someone else.
In any case...by now, dinner time didn't seem too far off so we decided to hit up a local market for some fruit to supplement our mystery fried appetizers. I communicated with the vendor for 2 nectarines and a peach for James and the boys. I was past hungry, so decided to wait for dinner. The vendor insisted that I try a fig; after agreeing that it was good, I somehow ended up with a whole package of them. Another situation where international sign language failed us!
We didn't order any of these ...
We walked to a marked and got some fruit – peach, nectarines,
dates – and then back on the HOHO. We
got off at the port and Mom and Dad went back.
We had promised Rudy gelato so we went forward. At the first place Brady ordered the “red one” and Rudy
ordered chocolate. We weren’t even out
the door when Brady whispered to me that his was terrible. How terrible could it be? I’m thinking. Well “red” turned out to be watermelon and it
had real black watermelon seeds in it.
You know how you like eating watermelon but watermelon flavored gum and
Jolly Ranchers are nasty. Same
same. This was a truly disgusting gelato
flavor. We walked outside and put it in
the first trash can we saw. Rudy didn’t
like his either but Kelly took that one for the team. Chocolate gelato is still chocolate
gelato. So we had to stop for gelato
again (stop 3 if you’re counting) and the boys played it safe with Limon. -James
Another great sailaway, since we hugged the coast until after dark:
Apparently, we took too many sunset pictures...because the flash broke taking this picture. I heard it pop, like a light bulb burning out, and it didn't work for the rest of the trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment