Sicily-More Palermo

Teatro Massimo

Palermo Cathedral

Martyred Priest

April 3, 2014

On Our Own Again

We left the hotel in plenty of time to grab an English speaking tour of Teatro Massimo. It's one of the first opera houses built in Italy. Construction started in 1875, & was completed in 1897. It has the second largest stage in Europe. It’s palatial in scale & design with red plush seats & private anterooms & box seats for royals. Chestnut wood was used to surround the shoe shaped theater creating perfect acoustics. Performers shun microphones & since music is the raison d'être, air-conditioning, a modern addition, is avoided due to its noise.  The frescoed dome was built so that each panel opens to a window for ventilation, & to this day, it is the preferred method for air circulation. Originally, there were no seats in the lower level. The less advantaged stood as commoners did in The Globe Theater, & nobles sat in the six tiers of balcony. Today, all attendees must be seated & prices vary.

Known world wide as the setting for shooting Godfather III, the theater has another dark past. A church was torn down to build part of the Teatro Massimo, & it is said there is a phantom at this opera house. A nun haunts the stairs we took to descend after the tour & we were warned she's been known to trip people :)

We walked over to the Cathedral passing stores selling vestments. I don't think they'd sell to the likes of us. We were warned that the exterior trumped the interior so were prepared to be disappointed. We were. Built around 1185, it's a Cathedral built on a Basilica, built on a Mosque. It is plain, uninspiring, & depressing. The exterior is a melding of what we're used to seeing by now. Its multi-faceted architecture echoes the culture of whoever put a hand to it over the centuries.

Yesterday, I wrote that Raffaella told us there were no more Mafioso in Sicily. She said they were all in Miami. Today, in the Cathedral, we saw proof she's wrong. There was a memorial display of photos of the life of a priest recently martyred at the hands of the Mafia.

Our personal best at being lost came when we were resting on a park bench on our way to the Abatellis Museum. We'd entered through a gate & walked through Piazza Marina, a park, thinking there would be an open gate on the opposite side. There was none. We wandered around until we found the gate we'd entered & escaped to the museum.

The Abatellis is housed in a 15th century palace. The artwork is from the 12-16th century & some of the works reflect the influence of Carravagio who lived in Sicily for a time. Most of the art is religious in nature with smatterings of gore per the stories the art was depicting. My favorite was someone's intestines being eaten by birds while he was still alive.

We were so tired when we reached the museum, that at one point we were seated near the elevator & asked who of us was going to get off the bench & push the button. No one moved. We realized we'd been on our feet for six hours with a half hour break for lunch. It's warm today, in the low 70's, & it has taken its toll. We've walked miles on sore feet in the last three days. We skirted the waterfront then headed back to the hotel. We needed gelati & David tried eating it the Sicilian way, in a brioche. Tasty, but messy. There was nowhere to sit down so we trudged along. It was uphill, of course.

Tomorrow we drive to Cefalu, a seaside town, & Messina where we return our rental car. We then board the ferry for a twenty minute crossing to Reggio Calabria in the south of Italy. For the next few days we'll have a driver. A pleasure.

Toby