Blogs from Palermo, Sicily, Italy, Europe - page 8

Only those who have worked for a long time in one of Charlie's buildings - and there may be only one reader of this blog who still does - will appreciate why I almost wanted to go to the town of Randazzo and have a look, just to see whether his origins suggest some answers for the way he operates. It is not just old Charlie. We have a town called Nicolosi, of Guiseppe fame; Sciacca, as in Con; and it goes on. There was even a garbage truck run by the Musumeci company. And there have been any number of companies with the famous Fazio name on them. It makes Sicily all nice and familiar. We actually didn't intend to be in Sicily quite this quickly but when we left Metapunto not too far west ... read more

April 6 was our day to see Palermo, which turned out to be mildly disappointing. The bus we took into town stopped at about 20 more stops than it had the night before, so it took us about an hour to get into town, and then the main museum we had been planning on seeing was closed for renovations. We then tried to go in some churches that we had written down from our guidebooks, but they were also closed (or we couldn’t find the doors—one of the two). We did go into a random church we just found on a road we were walking on, and it was pretty and old. We saw Cathedrale, the main cathedral in Palermo, and it was beautiful, as well as an old Palermo Palace with a church with the ... read more

Geo: 38.1157, 13.3612 Our last day in Palermo and Kim and I wanted to go see the Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo. Palermo's Capuchin monastery outgrew its original cemetery in the 16th century and monks began to excavate crypts below it. In 1599 they mummified one of their number, recently-dead brother Silvestro of Gubbio, and placed him into the catacombs. The bodies were dehydrated on the racks of ceramic pipes in the catacombs and sometimes later washed with vinegar. Some of the bodies were embalmed and others enclosed in sealed glass cabinets. Monks were preserved with their everyday clothing and sometimes with ropes they had worn as a penance. Originally the catacombs were intended only for the dead friars. However, in the following centuries it became a status symbol to be entombed into the capuchin catacombs. In ... read more

Geo: 38.1157, 13.3612 After a very very early wake up we were off to Palermo. A short flight and we were on Sicily with great weather to greet us. We took a bus into Palermo and made or way to the Hotel Posta. After we did some walking around we meet up with my Dad and Donna. We dad dinner at a local restaurant and called it a night.... read more

Geo: 38.1157, 13.3612This morning after eating our provided breakfast on the terrace, Jess, Andy and I headed out into the warm Sicilian sun to see the city. We were hoping that it would look much better than it did to us last night when we arrived. It did. It no longer seemed dark, scary or dodgy. ... read more