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Published: November 3rd 2007
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Sicily!
The view from the plane! Palermo & Monreale
Soooo I arrived back from Lausanne on Sunday, had two midterms in Humanities and Religion 501 on Monday, then woke up at 4am on Tuesday morning to get on a flight to Sicily!! We were headed to this beautiful island off the southern coast of Italy for our Fall Field Trip!!
Our flight arrived in Palermo at around 8am and we went off into the city to learn lots of things about Sicilian culture! We took a bus up to a city called Monreale where we visited the Dome and Cathedral of the city. The cathedral was very plain on the outside but inside...was the most dazzling thing I'd ever seen. The whole building is a mixture of Arab, Byzantine, and Norman artistic styles framed by traditional Romanesque architecture. There were beautiful mosaics everywhere and was said to be the world's largest display of mosaics only surpassed by Istanbul's Basilica. It was soo pretty. After this we went around a courtyard full of amazing columns that were all differently carved. Such a pretty town...
Following Monreale we went back down to Palermo and visited the downtown area. We went to a place called
Artistic mosaics at its best
Inside of The Cathedral at Monreale Norman palace which was really pretty and there was preserved medieval walls in the basement of the palace. Following this we also visited the Palatine Chapel and the cathedral of Palermo which was sooo pretty and big on the outside but on the inside not as beautiful or artistic as the cathedral from Monreale.
We also went to see the Church of Martorana and the "Fontana Pretoria" and "Quattro Canti". The Fontana Pretoria was an amazing fountain that looked like something I would see in Rome! It was surrounded by four sets of stairs surrounded by statues of nymphs and mermaids! We also went to Quattro
Canti which is the traditional center of Palermo. It is the crossroad of two main streets and marks the heart of the historical and touristic interest place.
After this exhausting but fun day we headed to our hotel and had an amazing meal there. We went to bed after this and prepared for Wednesday.
Cefalu & Castelbuono
Wednesday morning we woke up and got ready then left our hotel for Cefalu at 9am. We arrived in Cefalu at 11am. This city is a gorgeous coastal medieval town
Cathedral in Palermo
Such a pretty church on the site of an ancient Sicanian and Greek settlement. There is a huge Temple on the mountain overlooking the town and an old church in the center. The cathedral was filled with mosaics just like the ones in Palermo and Monreale and was also really pretty. We also went to see a lavatoio, which was a medieval wash house fed by freshwater springs.
After this we had free time in Cefalu! which was soo much fun because we were able to go swimming in the Mediterranean!! It was a blast! The water was sooo warm. We got back to the bus at around 3pm and went to Castelbuono. It was a mountain town that had a big Castle in it that was built by Francesco I. There was also a church called Madrice Vecchia in this town and was full of beautiful frescoes. This trip was pretty much full of churches, cathedrals, castles, mosaics, and more cathedrals hahaha
After this we drove to a town called Agrigento on the southern coast. We stayed at a Hotel called Hotel Kaos and had dinner there. This hotel also had a swimming pool!! So we all went swimming
even though it was FREEZING!! The other guests were kinda weirded out by us cause it was like 10pm haha. Oh and there was also this big group of old people from England who were travelling around Sicily and they definitely didn't like us cause we were supposedly "very loud and giving our country of America a bad name." haha whatever
Agrigento
We woke up Thursday morning and went to an archeological area known as the Valley of the Temples. This was my favorite part of Sicily because it was a town full of well preserved Greek temples! I felt as though I was in Greece! There were temples dedicated to zeus, hercules, hera, jupiter and lots more! It was a lot of fun seeing these amazing buildings and most of them were well preserved! We just walked around this place for awhile admiring the old ruins. It was a lot of fun!
We left Agrigento at around 2pm and drove to Taormina. It was funny cause the whole way there we played Mafia! And that ride was about 3 hours! haha we love Mafia and we were
Cefalu
My friend Katrin and I in Sicily! We arrived in Taormina at 5pm and I pretty much fell in love with it!!! Our hotel La Plage was RIGHT on the beach!! It was this amazing peninsula type place and the hotel had little bungalows all on the water. It was the most amazing place ever!! We got settled in and went to eat then had a bon fire on the beach! Such a pretty night and so much fun! I could tell that going around Taormina was going to be fun on Friday!
Taormina
We woke up, had breakfast, and went into the city of Taormina. This city is WAY up in the mountains overlooking the ocean beacuse it needed protection from enemies. We went to see this ancient Theater where you could see the bay below and Mount Etna in the background!! Unfortunately, the day we went was very cloudy so you couldn't see the volcano but it was still gorgeous! And they still use this Theater for international festivals and shows!
On the other side of the Theater you could see down the coast at where they filmed the Godfather! Pretty cool! We also got to visit the
Odeon, Corvaja Palace, St. Catherine's Church, and the Cathedral which were all amazing as well!
It had started raining after our tour so we decided to go back to our hotel. I was pretty bummed cause I had wanted to swim and I slipped on a slippery step and fallen on my back which hurt pretty bad. I'm okay but I had to stay in my room for the remainder of the day. We just went to dinner that night and then played some games in the lobby of our hotel. It was a good night but the rain was soo annoying. Mount Etna on Saturday though!
Mount Etna
We left for Mt Etna at around 12pm. It was still raining and foggy---not the best day to climb a volcano haha. Regardless we drove up to the base of the volcano and took the gondola up. Mount Etna is Sicily's highest mountain and Europe's highest active volcano. It is also one of the world's most studied volcanoes because of its frequent eruptions and long record of eruptions.
It was sooooo cold and I did not like it. We were supposed to take private
tours up to the top in nice jeeps but since the conditions were so bad they had cancelled all the tours. BUT some of my friends decided they would walk as far as they could up to the top which just wasn't possible. We decided to try it but it just kept getting worse and worse. By this time it was a full on blizzard and ice pellets falling down from the sky. I felt like I was in a frozen hell haha. Pretty intense. Everyone made it back down safetly but not before we had some sprain ankles and frostbite scares. What a crazy day lol but fun!
We took the bus to the airport in Catania and waited to board our plane. Our plane left at 9pm and we got back into florence at 10:30pm. It had been an exhausting but very FUN week in Sicily!!
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