Monreale, Palermo, Cefalu, Noto

Well, here's another long update. Last Tuesday, I stubbed my toe by walking into a closed door. Smart, huh? I broke in the nail in half and skinned the tip. Although it did not hurt at first (and I didn't even know I was hurt until I looked down), it later hurt like a bitch. It still hurts a little bit. I took a picture of it. Here:



Last weekend, July 21-22, I went on my long Palermo trip. While it was meant to be fun, I got my period (sorry for all the guys reading) and had extremely limited access to a bathroom all day. This equals a horrible time and an embarrassing mess. Needless to say, my shorts turned into an unfortunate mess.

First, we went to Monreale, which means "Royal Mountain." It is located to the south of Palermo, the capital. It began to expand under the Norman kings, and the most important monument there is the Cathedral. It was built between 1170 and 1182 by William II. It is a Benedictine monastery, and we were able to walk around one of the cloisters. All of the columns were decorated with glass mosaics, and each of the column caps were decorated with different scenes. There were 216 columns, and each cap was unique.



Although the outside of the cathedral doesn't look like anything special, the inside was pretty amazing. It was completely covered in glass mosaics. At the dome in the front, there is this huge image of Christ Pantocrator, Ruler of All, surrounded by images of the saints. The apse on the right has the life of Paul, and the apse on the left has the life of Peter. The nave holds images from the Old Testament on the top and images from the life of Jesus on the bottom. Unfortunately, I was unable to get very good pictures inside because once the wedding was over, they turned the lights off. In order to get the lights back on, I would have to pay a euro for about 20 seconds of light whatever corner of the church I wanted.



I then got to walk around Monreale a little bit and take pictures of the fountains.



Next, we went to Palermo, the capital of Sicilia. The patron saint of Palermo is Santa Rosalia, whose feast day is July 15 (my birthday!) It was founded in the 8th century BC by Phoenicians, but it has been conquered by just about everyone.

The first two places we went were San Cataldo and La Martorana. San Cataldo is best known for its Norman architecture and its three red domes. La Martorana was originally built in 1143-51, and it became a convent in 1436. The nuns of Martorana are famous for their marzipans, which are known around Palermo as frutti de Martorana. Today, it is used as a Greek Orthodox Church. While we were there, there was a wedding going on. The inside of the church is a mix of baroque and renaissance frescoes, the latter of which are relatively unimportant. At the front of the church is Christ Pantocrator again surrounded by the Archangels. One of the most important mosaics in the church is of Christ crowning William II, which I unfortunately do not have a good picture of.



Next, we visited the Piazza Pretoria and the fountain within it. Made between 1554 and 1555, it was originally designed for a private Florentine villa. The city bought the fountain and unveiled it in 1575. It was situated outside of two prominent churches, Santa Caterina, San Giuseppe dei Teatini. It caused such public outrage that it is now called the Fontana della Vergogna by the Palermitans, or "Fountain of Shame."



We then visited the San Giuseppe dei Teatini. It looked like the other churches with Baroque and Rococo styles. Douglas, the tour guide and my creative writing teacher's husband, called Rococo style "Baroque on hallucinogens," which I found pretty funny. There wasn't much else to say about the church. There was another wedding going on.



The next stop was zisa, a castle built by Arabians for William I and completed by William II. It functioned as a summer home for Norman kings and was part of a larger hunting estate known as Genoard, "Paradise on Earth." The name Zisa comes from an Arab term meaning "magnificent." Although it's not much to look at now, it used to be pretty amazing. Since its prime, all the nicer stone and wall decorations have been stripped off the walls. The entire building used to have a cooling system where water flowed through the walls from the roof and exited the castle in a fountain at the front of the building.



We then went to our hotel, Hotel Rainbow, and then we had dinner. I should've ordered the most expensive thing on the menu. Our waiters were bitches, too, and refused to do anything I asked. I must've requested more water at least three times. Also, they didn't bring me a wine glass, as if Italy had a drinking age. Urg.

I got lost in Palermo for about an hour after I left the bar with Hermanus trying to find our way back to the hotel. Of course, after we called Dani to help us out, the hotel was only a ten minute walk away from the bookstore. Of course. The housekeepers woke us up early to give us a vending machine breakfast, which was pretty nasty, so that we could make our way to the Catacombe dei Cappuccini, the Catacombs of the Capuchins.

I was told that there are eight thousand mummies in the catacombs strung up on the walls. I was not allowed to take any pictures (sorry), but you can Google it. The monks discovered that the catacombs contained a mysterious preservative that helped to mummify the bodies. As a result, many Sicilians asked to be embalmed and dressed in their finest clothing. Some of the bodies, as old as five hundred years old, still had skin, eyelids, hair, and beards. It was so creepy. The last corpse to be buried there was in 1920, a two year old named Rosalia Lombaro. She looks so lifelike the locals call her "Sleeping Beauty." She literally looks just like a sleeping baby. Personally, I think she's just a marzipan.

Next, we traveled to Cefalu, which was named after this enormous rock, La Rocca, that resembles a head right next to the town. Honestly, I don't know why they rushed us out of bed so quickly to look at the Duomo for five minutes (we honestly couldn't go in because of Sunday services) and then for six free hours in this tiny town. Why not give us more time to explore Palermo, which honestly could take about six hours. Alas, I'm just angry. The Duomo was begun in 1131, and it again is Norman. At the front is Christ Pantocrator. Nothing special about it. Woo.

After that, we climbed La Rocca to go see the ruins. Why did I choose to do this in a black skirt, navy blue shirt, a pair of flipflops, and a hurt toe nail at 1:00 in the afternoon?? Because I'm dumb, that's why. And I had destroyed my shorts the day before, that's why. It was a steep climb, the stones were extremely slippery, and there were rocks and dirt everywhere. I must have rolled my ankle a dozen times, I lost of my bandaid, and I slid down the stairs on my ass. Silly me.

However, the climb was just so cool. We got to see the ruins of an ancient town, which probably owed its importance to the fact that no one in their right minds would try to attack them. You can see the remains of some walls and a Doric Temple, supposedly dedicated to Diana, built in the 5th to 4th century BC. We saw the remains of an old church, with a big circle and words like "chaos" and "fire" drawn around it and the remains of a fire in the center. We also saw the remains of other buildings, a huge furnace, and several cisterns. When we got to the top, there were the remains of a fortress. I didn't get much time to look around the top because I was feeling the beginnings of heat stroke and had to sit down for a breather. Herm took pictures for me though.



After that, we got some lemon granita, mmm, because we were so sweaty and gross, and then we walked around the tourist shops. Then, we got back on the bus and went home to our showers.

Tuesday, July 24, my creative writing class took a trip to Noto, which is southwest of Siracusa. According to legend, Daedalus stopped here on his flight over the sea, as well as Hercules after his seventh task. The entire town was destroyed in the 1693 earthquake and was rebuilt. The Duomo was rebuilt after the dome collapsed with this yellow limestone that supposedly glows at night. The inside is in a Baroque style, but it's completely whitewashed, which was interesting. Patti, my teacher, says she thinks that the church is waiting for someone to come paint it.

While I was sitting outside at this cafe for class, I put my bag on the ground. When I got up to leave, I reached into the bag, and there was this enormous cockroach inside!! I freaked out, dropped the bag, and poured it out. This enormous sucker came scurrying out. Grr. What a horrible experience.



Then, we took the bus back. Patti hired me to type up edits on her manuscripts for 9 euro an hour. I said, hell yeah. The end.

This weekend, CJ and I plan on going to Agrigento to see the Valley of the Temples. Sunday and Monday, the entire W&M program is going to Malta to study pirates. I'll have to miss class, but who cares, honestly.