Petersontravels

We departed Florence and flew to Rome, then Palermo, Sicily.  The flights were uneventful, but upon landing I tried dealing with the taxi drivers and discovered some Sicilians can be just as difficult as advertised.  I will spare you the details, but let me say you should just use Uber at the airport and while in Palermo.  No hidden fees, no haggling and no bullshit.  It’s also a lot cheaper and you can pay with your credit card.  BTW, taxi drivers in Italy are required to accept credit cards….but let’s just say the taxi drivers haven’t been told!  Lesson learned.

We checked into our beautiful hotel, Villa Igiea, which sits on the outskirts of the city and is very quiet.  After experiencing how loud Palermo can be we were thankful for that!  We walked around the grounds for awhile and I snapped some photos.  The building that houses the hotel was built in the late 1800’s as a villa for a British Admiral, and later purchased by the wealthy Sicilian businessman Ignazio Florio (we’ve seen the Florio name attached to numerous places in Sicily, including a winery) who turned it into a luxury hotel that opened in 1900.

The hotel has hosted royalty from Russia, the UK, and Siam (now Thailand) as well as celebrities such as Burt Lancaster and Sophia Loren.  It is definitely THE place to stay if you come to Palermo.

This is the view at breakfast.  This spot doubles as the excellent Florio Restaurant, where we had dinner twice during our stay.  The food and service are excellent!!

There is a collection of celebrity shoes in one part of the hotel, including these Trump shoes.  Hilarious!

On our first full day in Palermo we had a “Tours by Locals” with our guide Pietro.  He advised that it was better to first head to Monreale, a small hill-top city just outside Palermo with one of the most unique churches in Italy, the Monreale Cathedral, which was started in 1174.

The Cathedral is a stunning example of Norman (Norse mixed with French) architecture that incorporates Byzantine (an ancient Greek city which is now in Turkey) elements, particularly in it’s golden mosaics created by the Byzantine craftsmen.  The famous mosaic of Christ Pantocrator in the main apse was created in the 12th century.

Here is a closeup of the Christ Pantocrator.  The most common translation of Pantocrator is “Almighty” or “All-powerful” in the fashion in which Christ is depicted here.  Yes, I had to look it up.  Christ has his left hand held in a blessing with his right hand holding the Gospel text stating “I am the light of the world”.

The mosaic collection in Monreale is among the largest in the world.  Mosaics depicting stories from the Bible cover every part of the interior.  Our guide advised that these mosaics were very popular at the time as most of the population couldn’t read, so they learned stories via pictures.

Everything about this church was stunning….this is a definite must-do if you come to Palermo.

Our guide pointed out this mosaic depicting the Creation of Adam.  God is breathing the breath of life (via a stream) into the newly formed Adam.

This painting of the Virgin and Child is from the 13th century, and reflects a strong Byzantine style that was predominant in Southern Italy at the time.  I don’t know about you, but that “Child” looks pretty grown up!  Surprised he doesn’t have a beard!

Our guide pointed out the Byzantine style floor mosaics, with ever changing patterns.  This church is in excellent shape!

Another shot of the Christ Pantocrator from the side.  Just to the left of Christ are a couple of odd-looking 6-winged angels, representing the highest cosmic order of angels in traditional Byzantine iconography.  Yep, had to look that up too!

One last mosaic, The Last Supper, which caught my eye as they are actually sitting at a roundish table.  Judas isactually in the front of the table in this depiction.

This is the exterior of the Apse of the church on the eastern side.  This side is completely unique and looks nothing like the rest of the exterior.

This is a shot looking south with the suburbs of Palermo in the valley below.

Here is a shot of Palermo from just below the church.

Our guide got a pretty decent shot of us!

We then drove back and into the historic center of Palermo, where we parked the car in what felt like a relatively unsafe area.  There was graffiti and trash everywhere!  Our guide kept talking about how Palermo is a very poor city as if it was an excuse, but it actually looked worse than Oakland!  On top of that there was anti-Semitic graffiti on nearly every wall.  Very sad.  Our car was parked maybe 30 yards from this spot.  At least somebody included a “No Border, No Nation” slogan!

We quickly entered a crowded area (including a very packed and loud street-food alley), and the “this area is dangerous” vibes subsided.  Our guide brought us into another church, this one the Church of the Gesu., which has a fairly basic exterior.

The interior is quite different!  Extremely ornate marble inlays, rich stucco-work and plenty of frescoes.  Unfortunately the church took a direct hit from an allied bomb during WWII, so the original ceiling and large portions of the interior were destroyed.

The ceiling was obviously newer, but with the incredibly intricate walls I couldn’t tell what was new and what was old.

I love the parrots!

As we entered the Jewish Quarter our guide showed us this street sign that is in Italian, Hebrew and Arabic, an indicator of the “melting pot of Palermo”.  I just don’t know how that squares with the anti-Semitic graffiti we saw everywhere!

On our walking tour we walked through Piazza Bellini and our guide showed us this conglomeration of churches, the Baroque/Norman facade of the Church of Santa Maria on the left (founded in 1143) and the distinctive Arabic red domes of the Church of San Cataldo (founded in 1154) on the right.  Both structures are part of the Arab-Norman Palermo UNESCO World Heritage site.

He then showed us the massive “Fontana Pretoria” in a piazza that is far too small for it.  It is known as the “Fountain of Shame” due to the nudity of the sculptures and the adjacent nun’s convent with windows that overlooked it (they immediately had to shutter the windows).  It was sculpted in Florence in 1554 and intended for a private villa before being sold to the Palermo Senate and shipped over in 644 separate pieces.  It is unfortunately undergoing renovations.

We then visited the exact center of Palermo, that has a very small mark on the ground.  This group asked us to move so they could put their camera on the mark and get a photo.

Our last stop of the tour was Palermo Cathedral, founded in 1185.  It is a striking mix of Arab/Norman, Gothic, Renaissance and Neoclassical styles (according to Google).

Directly in front of the cathedral is this statue of Santa Rosalia, the patron saint of Palermo.  The people of Palermo give her credit for stopping the bubonic plague in 1624, via a tall story of her bones being found on a nearby mountain due to a vision by a hunter, and by carrying her bones through the city.  Bear in mind she died in 1166.  The statue has her standing on a representation of the plague.

The inside of the church isn’t quite as ornate as the others in Palermo.

The church does have this very cool meridian line where the sun shines through a small hole in the southern wall and at what is known as “Local Apparent Noon” (when the sun is at it’s highest point of the day) aligns with spots on the line depending on the time of the year.

The various times of the year are depicted by corresponding Astrology signs (Pisces and Cancer here).  Each spot has two signs as the sun moves from the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice and back each year.

Coming up next we visit the historic center of Palermo once more, and then take the train to the beach town of Cefalu.

 

 

On our final day in Florence we decided to visit the interior of the Basilica di Santa Croce, something we’ve only viewed from the front facade a few times.  To refresh your memory, here is a shot of the exterior from our first night in Florence.  Santa Croce is the largest Franciscan church in the world.

This is the High Altar and Polyptych (the Trumpish looking “panel painting” below the cross…yeah, I had to look the word up).  The entire wall area around the altar is covered in frescoes….a testament to how much was spent on this place!

Shortly after entering the church I saw this “cenotaph memorial” (another term I had to look up) to Guglielmo Marconi, the inventor of the radio.  A cenotaph is an empty tomb dedicated to somebody important to the church.  Marconi is actually buried in Bologna.  “My bologna has a first name, it’s O S C A R…..”  See, now you can’t get it out of your head!

Now for the most famous tomb in the church, which requires a bit of a story.  When Michelangelo died in 1564 at the age of 88 there was a great debate regarding how his remains should be handled.  Rome thought the worlds greatest artist should be kept there, but the Medici family insisted that their most famous son belonged in Florence.

Realizing the Pope would never agree to release the body, Michelangelo’s nephew, Lionardo, orchestrated a daring midnight heist (cue “Mission Impossible” music here).  They removed Michelangelo from his temporary tomb and wrapped the three-week-old corpse in a giant bale of hay and packed it inside a shipping crate.  The crate rolled quietly out of Rome, and by the time the Pope found out they were in Florentine territory.  It arrived at Santa Croce on March 10, 1564.  Local lore has it that when they removed him the crate Michelangelo’s body was pristine, perfectly preserved, and completely free from any odor of decay (ok, I call bullshit here…maybe the peasants who hadn’t showered for a few weeks couldn’t smell it, but come on…the Medici certainly could!)

This is his final resting place in the church, with a portrait bust in the middle, and three marble statues below him representing the arts that Michelangelo mastered; Painting, Sculpture and Architecture.  His bust is looking towards the center of Florence, the city he loved.

Up next is another famous tomb with a back story, that of Galileo Galilei.  This was completed in 1737, nearly a century after his death in 1642, due to initial opposition from the church authorities as he was thought to be a heretic.  Galileo was actually put on trial on 1633 and found “vehemently suspect of heresy” because he defended what is known as heliocentrism, the astronomical model showing the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun.  This flew in the face of certain Bible passages, and the Pope was not happy!  Galileo spent the last 9 years of his life under house arrest, and the Vatican only cleared his name in 1992.

Galileo’s bust is obvious, with a statue representing Astronomy on the left (holding a diagram of sunspots) and Geometry on the right.

This is the Cavalcanti Annunciation, a famous early Renaissance high-relief scuplture created by Donatello around 1433-1435.

On the right side of the altar is the Bardi chapel, where famous frescoes represent the Stories of Saint Francis.  These were painted in the 14th century by a man considered the father of Italian painting, Giotto.  Santa Croce was unfortunately devastated by a massive flood in 1966, and these were just recently restored, with portions lost due to the flood waters.

The opposite wall of Giotto’s frescoes.

Hey look, another Medici Coat of Arms!  This creepy looking frescoe is “Christ and the Samaritan Woman at the Well”, painted in 1445 by Paolo Schiavo.  Yeah, I never heard of him before this either,  I just thought it was scary looking.  Can you imagine this poor woman meeting a dude with an orange frisbee on this head?

This is a famous painted wooden crucifix of Christ on the Cross by artist Cimabue, created before 1288.  It was unfortunately heavily damaged by the 1966 flood, and only recently restored (as much as possible).  It now sits up high enough in the church that it will never see water again.

Upon exiting the church towards the south you can see some markers up on the wall that show the height of the 1966 floods (the highest mark).

Here is a better view of the upper markers.

Just past those markers in the Pazzi Chapel, another family of bankers that was often at odds with the Medici.  The two sea creatures are part of their Coat of Arms.

One last part of the Santa Croce complex is the Refectory that has several restored paintings and frescoes from the flood.  This is Giorgio Vasari’s “The Last Supper”, painted between 1546-1547.  Heavily damaged while under 22 feet of water, mud and heating oil for over 12 hours, it was considered unsalvageable.  It took 50 years of innovative conservation to get it fully restored and returned to the church in 2016.

Your last view of Santa Croce as you are exiting is the cloister.  That’s the Pazzi Chapel in the background.

From the church we decided to check off one more spot, Boboli Gardens, on the south side of the Arno River and up on the hillside.  We made the steep climb pretty much on one road, and we passed what was once the home of Galileo (for a brief period).  In the below photo he lived in the white building, while the owners of the adjacent “Tower of Galileo” allowed him to use the buildings to the right for his work.  What they are calling the tower (in the middle) had observation windows for his telescopes.

After entering the Boboli Gardens we were a little surprised with how little there was to see.  Most everything was either closed (buildings) or in a state of repair (most of the grounds).  They shouldn’t even be charging a fee at this point.  Here is what is supposed to be a famous fountain of Neptune, which looks to be a long ways from completion.  In the background is the Pitti Palace, the last home of the Medici family before their reign ended.

This was about the only part of the gardens that looked like a garden.

There were some nice views of Florence from the gardens.

Throughout the garden were various pieces of Roman artwork that the Medici family picked up over the years, including this 3000 year old obelisk (even that is cordoned off).

One more look at the Florence skyline as we descended from the gardens.

This grotto seemed really out of place and it seemed to be in poor condition.  It was created between 1583 and 1593, has fake stalactites and frescoed walls, and of course had the Medici Coat of Arms on the facade.  They seemed to always have a lot of money, but maybe not always a lot of taste?  Maybe it was more impressive in 1593.

This is the interior of the grotto.

On our way back to the hotel we crossed Ponte Vecchio Bridge for the last time, and the light was perfect for a final shot of Florence!

Coming up next, we fly to Palermo, Sicily, and start our 22 day adventure on the largest island in the Mediterranean.