Today is my sixth day in Sicily and the first that I have wifi. I’ve been disappointed not to be able to post my many photos and stories as I go along, but I suppose it reflects a cultural difference between the US and Italy. For us (especially us college students who are glued to our laptops and iPhones), internet seems like a necessity, but here it’s still a luxury. So despite the fact that we’ve been staying in fairly nice hotels, this is the first that has free wireless.
I’m writing from Syracuse, but I’ll start my stories from the beginning and update from the last few days as I go along (who knows if I’ll have internet in our next stop, so I may have to finish when we return).
We arrived in Sicily on Friday morning after flying from Newark to Rome to Palermo. As the plane began its descent over the island, the striking mountains came into sight, and despite my exhaustion, I knew that I was in for an incredible trip. We met our bus (which has a crazy circular “party booth” in the back) and headed to Cefalu, a small town on the northern coast of the island where we spent our first night. Cefalu is an incredibly charming seaside town, which is apparently packed in the summer but was very peaceful now. It is picturesque and Sicilian, with winding streets, laundry hanging from apartment balconies, and streets lined with citrus trees. Of interest: the Academy Award-winning Italian film Cinema Paradiso was filmed here.
I took a walk with some other group members after arriving and eating my first Sicilian pizza, to avoid napping. We climbed up “La Rocca” a large cliff overlooking the city, which has ruins of a temple to Diana and an old castle, and a breathtaking view of the small town, the mountains, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean. We arrived right before closing as the sun was setting, and instantly fell in love with Sicily.
sunset over Cefalu, as seen from La Rocca
The next day, Saturday, the organized group trip began. Our class has been focusing on Sicilian history, art, and architecture under Greek, Roman, Arab, and Norman rule and so our trip has been taking us to various sites of interest that we’ve studied in class, from old Greek temples and city ruins to Norman churches. We began with the Cathedral in Cefalu, which rises high above the rest of the city and features Byzantine mosaics. We next took the bus to Monreale, a town just outside of Palermo with a similar cathedral that was modelled after Cefalu’s but whose mosaics are mind-blowing, for lack of a better word. Intricate details in the floor, ceiling, and all of the walls and dizzying and practically every square inch of wall is covered in sparkling mosaics which narrate scenes from the New and Old Testaments. The cloisters outside of the cathedral were equally fascinating, as each column was topped with a different sculpture or scene.
interior of the Monreale cathedral
Visiting the two churches took up most of the day, and we arrived in Palermo to check into our hotel and in time to celebrate Halloween in Sicily. I won’t be able to post more photos until getting back to Princeton, but check back for those and for my next installment on the trip.