With six water bottles in hand we left Mondello and set off for the Capuchin Catacombs and then on to the seaside villages of Porticello and Sant'Elia which are about 20 Km east of downtown Palermo. The weather was broiling, apparently it reached 42 C (108 F) but what was most striking were the number of wildfires around the freeways, in the moutains and well, pretty much everywhere. It appeared that a single "amphibious bomber" was dispatched to drop water on these hundreds of fires (kinda like spitting on a bonfire). The plane would land briefly on the ocean to take-in water then rush off to drop it's load. The Capuchin Catacombs of Palermo were as billed; grotesque and eerie. As we descended into the Catacombs the temperature dropped about 10 degrees. The location of corpses
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