Our first
views of Sicily were masked by heavy rain clouds over the mountains
above Palermo docks as our ferry from mainland Italy approached (Photo
1). After a 1,150 miles journey from Calais, it was a chill greeting,
not at all the glorious Spring sunshine expected.
Click on highlighted area
for details of NW Sicily
Travelling to Sicily is expensive: £115 motorway and tunnel
tolls, £190 diesel, £415 2-way ferry tickets, and in early March, there are the
additional issues of closed campsites and uncertain weather
for crossing the Alps even through modern
road tunnels. Careful planning had
identified 4 hospitable campsites, all well recommended: la Barbuise near to
Troyes, Camping de l'Ardusaz at St Pierre d'Albigny amid the spectacular
Alpine scenery of the lower Isère valley, Camping la Sfinge on the
craggy Ligurian coast south of Genoa, and finally Campeggio Castelfusano
at Ostia near Rome. We favoured the Fréjus Tunnel through the Alps,
which was just as well since the Mont Blanc Tunnel was blocked by
landslides on the approach road. We reached Ostia with time in hand for
a relaxing day by bus, suburban train and metro in Rome, before the ferry from Civitavecchia to Palermo in
Sicily. Our 2007 travelling season was duly underway.
Boarding
the ferry at Civitavecchia was chaotically bewildering: we had booked
with SNAV, on a ferry operated by rivals Grandi Navi Veloci, and owned
by a 3rd company Grimaldi - all very Italian. But at 8-00 pm
the huge ferry slipped her moorings and moved out into the Mediterranean for
the overnight crossing. The following morning, pouring rain obscured the
rocky headland of Monte Pellegrino as we approached Palermo. Despite
being early morning, the traffic was intense as we found our way the 12
miles out of the city to the village of Sferracavallo and Camping degli
Ulivi, set amid aged olive trees (hence its name) and prickly pear
cactus. We had arrived, having
survived Palermo's traffic unscathed, and
the rain eased. The warden was welcoming and provided tickets for the
buses into the city: number 628 from Sferracavallo to the Stadium and
then a 101 into the city centre. And be sure to validate tickets on the
bus; merciless ticket inspectors can impose €50 fines. The bus journey
revealed the very worst of Palermo's traffic problems: narrow streets
congested beyond belief and buses allowed the wrong way down one-way
streets; total anarchy but somehow Sicilian driving culture has
adjusted.
We
spent this first day, bemused by rain and unfamiliar surroundings,
getting our bearings in Palermo. Starting from the grandiose Teatro in
Piazza Politeama Garibaldi (Photo 2), we
walked the length of
Palermo's trendy shopping streets, Via Ruggero Settimo and Maqueda,
where on each side dark and mysterious seedy alleys led to who knows
where. We reached the city's central crossroads of Quattro Canti
(literally 'Four Quarters'), not
the grand piazza imagined but a narrow space enclosed by towering
Baroque monumental frontages. Just beyond, we found Piazza Pretoria, its
fountains exuberantly decorated with white marble statues. Weaving
between parked cars blocking every pavement, we made our way back to Via
Roma to catch our bus back to Sferracavallo. Palermo was a total
culture shock: no amount of reading could prepare you for overcrowded
narrow streets and anarchic traffic, its ornately decaying Baroque
palazzos and churches, and rubbish piled everywhere among the
ubiquitously parked cars. You certainly could not call Palermo elegant,
but its unique character had a fascination al of its own. And for all
the over-hyped forebodings about petty crime and personal safety,
sensible precautions as always made the city seem less threatening than
many places nowadays in UK.
On the Sunday morning, we
again caught the buses into Palermo, to visit what is without doubt the
city's artistic gem, the Palazzo Reale dei Normanni. Originally built by
the Saracens over Phoenician foundations, the fortified palace was
enlarged by the Norman King Roger II in the 12th century to become a
lavish medieval court, and now houses the Sicilian Regional Parliament.
The palace's arcaded courtyard led to the royal chapel, the Capella
Palatina, awe-inspiringly decorated with Byzantine mosaics and richly
carved Saracen woodwork; except that it was now totally swathed in
coverings for renovation and we could see nothing of its artistic
treasures. Nearby, across a park filled with exotic palm trees, was
Palermo's Cathedral (Photo 3), an even more impressive
inheritance of the 11/12th century Norman period of occupation. The
beautiful triple apse and towers and the Norman-Sicilian ornamentation
along the southern façade gave the cathedral a distinct Moorish
appearance. Of all Palermo's places of interest, none is more intriguing
than the Convento dei Cappuccini Catacombs. Again no amount of reading
can prepare you for the gruesome spectacle of seeing rows of
semi-decomposed and contorted skeletal corpses stood in niches along the
Catacombs underground chambers. Some 8,000 deceased, preserved by
dehydration processes and dressed in clothes chosen for internment,
stare down at visitors. Stunned by this macabre experience, we returned
to the city for our buses back out to Sferracavallo.
A visit to Palermo's
Archaeological Museum is a must, with its magnificent collection of
Prehistoric, Carthaginean, Greek and Roman finds from sites in Western
Sicily. The highlight of the exhibits were the carved frieze-panels (metopes)
which had decorated the temples of the 5th century BC Greek colony
at Selinunte on the south coast. After such a feast of historical
aesthetics, we spent a happy afternoon ambling around the markets of the
Vucciria and Albergheria districts, a warren of seedy back streets and
alleyways filled with stalls selling all manner of meat, fish, fruit
and vegetables (Photo 4).
Long shall we remember our
time in Palermo and the treasure trove of new experiences it gave us;
but we now
had
the problem of extricating ourselves from the city. Driving in Sicily is
certainly not for the faint-hearted, where the horn is used more
regularly than indicators. Despite the stressful driving, we fought our
way out of the conurbation and up to Monreale high in the mountains
overlooking Palermo, to visit the 12th century cathedral. Begun in 1174,
Monreale Duomo embodies the ultimate artistic creativity of Byzantine,
Saracen and Sicilian-Norman craftsmanship. Every internal surface is
gilded and decorated with mosaics portraying Biblical scenes. Necks
crane upwards in admiration, but the eye is drawn inevitably to the huge
mosaic figure of Christ Pantocrator lining the central apse, an awesome
depiction full of compassion with arms outstretched in blessing (Photo
5).
Ahead of us lay an
uncertain journey across bleakly mountainous country, to wild-camp at
the archaeological site of ancient Segesta. The following morning, the
sun breasted the hill of the ancient acropolis to give a beautiful warm
spring morning for our visit to the magnificent
temple. Segesta had been founded by the Elymi,
according to legend descended from Trojan émigrés. By the 5th century
BC, Segesta was Hellenised but constant conflict with neighbouring Greek
colonies caused an appeal to Athens in 415 BC for help. It was said that
the temple of Segesta was built to impress the Athenian delegates of
Segesta's wealth; the ruse worked and Athens launched the ill-fated
Great Expedition against Syracuse. Afterwards, the temple was left
uncompleted, as we now see it, standing alone amid a profusion of wild
marigolds, borage and wild fennel on this remote green hillside (Photo
6).It is still one of the most intact of all ancient
temples, and one of the most spectacular particularly in this isolated
setting. On the hillside opposite are the excavated remains of the
ancient city with its small theatre looking out across the mountains.
We moved on to the
mountainous coast at the north-western corner of the island to wild-camp
at the Zingaro Natural Reserve. Conservationists had saved this
spectacular terrain from road development; mountainous slopes dropping
down to the craggy
coast-line are covered with dwarf
fan-palms which grow in
profusion among the maquis scrubland. The 6 km walk undulates over
headlands high above the rocky shoreline with mighty limestone mountains
towering overhead. Tiny coves with gleaming white shingle and azure-blue
sea are lined with Opuntia cactus (Photo
7). At this time of the year, the sun is bright without being
overpowering and the plant-life at its best. We spent a similar day
walking around the western coastline of this peninsula with the craggy
pinnacles of Monte Cofano overshadowing us. And our day culminated
with a magnificent sunset trailing golden light across the western sea,
lighting up our wild-camp at Cala Bugato (Photo
8).
Our
first week in Sicily has brought a wealth of contrasting new
experiences, and we now move on to explore the towns and sites along the
western and south-western sea-board of the island. Join us again for
more news next week.
Sheila and Paul
Published: Wednesday 21 March 2007
road tunnels. Careful planning had
identified 4 hospitable campsites, all well recommended: la Barbuise near to
Troyes, Camping de l'Ardusaz at St Pierre d'Albigny amid the spectacular
Alpine scenery of the lower Isère valley, Camping la Sfinge on the
craggy Ligurian coast south of Genoa, and finally Campeggio Castelfusano
at Ostia near Rome. We favoured the Fréjus Tunnel through the Alps,
which was just as well since the Mont Blanc Tunnel was blocked by
landslides on the approach road. We reached Ostia with time in hand for
a relaxing day by bus, suburban train and metro in Rome, before the ferry from Civitavecchia to Palermo in
Sicily. Our 2007 travelling season was duly underway.
survived Palermo's traffic unscathed, and
the rain eased. The warden was welcoming and provided tickets for the
buses into the city: number 628 from Sferracavallo to the Stadium and
then a 101 into the city centre. And be sure to validate tickets on the
bus; merciless ticket inspectors can impose €50 fines. The bus journey
revealed the very worst of Palermo's traffic problems: narrow streets
congested beyond belief and buses allowed the wrong way down one-way
streets; total anarchy but somehow Sicilian driving culture has
adjusted.
We
spent this first day, bemused by rain and unfamiliar surroundings,
getting our bearings in Palermo. Starting from the grandiose Teatro in
Piazza Politeama Garibaldi (Photo 2), we
walked the length of
Palermo's trendy shopping streets, Via Ruggero Settimo and Maqueda,
where on each side dark and mysterious seedy alleys led to who knows
where. We reached the city's central crossroads of Quattro Canti
(literally 'Four Quarters'), not
the grand piazza imagined but a narrow space enclosed by towering
Baroque monumental frontages. Just beyond, we found Piazza Pretoria, its
fountains exuberantly decorated with white marble statues. Weaving
between parked cars blocking every pavement, we made our way back to Via
Roma to catch our bus back to Sferracavallo. Palermo was a total
culture shock: no amount of reading could prepare you for overcrowded
narrow streets and anarchic traffic, its ornately decaying Baroque
palazzos and churches, and rubbish piled everywhere among the
ubiquitously parked cars. You certainly could not call Palermo elegant,
but its unique character had a fascination al of its own. And for all
the over-hyped forebodings about petty crime and personal safety,
sensible precautions as always made the city seem less threatening than
many places nowadays in UK.
On the Sunday morning, we
again caught the buses into Palermo, to visit what is without doubt the
city's artistic gem, the Palazzo Reale dei Normanni. Originally built by
the Saracens over Phoenician foundations, the fortified palace was
enlarged by the Norman King Roger II in the 12th century to become a
lavish medieval court, and now houses the Sicilian Regional Parliament.
The palace's arcaded courtyard led to the royal chapel, the Capella
Palatina, awe-inspiringly decorated with Byzantine mosaics and richly
carved Saracen woodwork; except that it was now totally swathed in
coverings for renovation and we could see nothing of its artistic
treasures. Nearby, across a park filled with exotic palm trees, was
Palermo's Cathedral (Photo 3), an even more impressive
inheritance of the 11/12th century Norman period of occupation. The
beautiful triple apse and towers and the Norman-Sicilian ornamentation
along the southern façade gave the cathedral a distinct Moorish
appearance. Of all Palermo's places of interest, none is more intriguing
than the Convento dei Cappuccini Catacombs. Again no amount of reading
can prepare you for the gruesome spectacle of seeing rows of
semi-decomposed and contorted skeletal corpses stood in niches along the
Catacombs underground chambers. Some 8,000 deceased, preserved by
dehydration processes and dressed in clothes chosen for internment,
stare down at visitors. Stunned by this macabre experience, we returned
to the city for our buses back out to Sferracavallo.
Long shall we remember our
time in Palermo and the treasure trove of new experiences it gave us;
but we now
had
the problem of extricating ourselves from the city. Driving in Sicily is
certainly not for the faint-hearted, where the horn is used more
regularly than indicators. Despite the stressful driving, we fought our
way out of the conurbation and up to Monreale high in the mountains
overlooking Palermo, to visit the 12th century cathedral. Begun in 1174,
Monreale Duomo embodies the ultimate artistic creativity of Byzantine,
Saracen and Sicilian-Norman craftsmanship. Every internal surface is
gilded and decorated with mosaics portraying Biblical scenes. Necks
crane upwards in admiration, but the eye is drawn inevitably to the huge
mosaic figure of Christ Pantocrator lining the central apse, an awesome
depiction full of compassion with arms outstretched in blessing (Photo
5).
Ahead of us lay an
uncertain journey across bleakly mountainous country, to wild-camp at
the archaeological site of ancient Segesta. The following morning, the
sun breasted the hill of the ancient acropolis to give a beautiful warm
spring morning for our visit to the magnificent
temple. Segesta had been founded by the Elymi,
according to legend descended from Trojan émigrés. By the 5th century
BC, Segesta was Hellenised but constant conflict with neighbouring Greek
colonies caused an appeal to Athens in 415 BC for help. It was said that
the temple of Segesta was built to impress the Athenian delegates of
Segesta's wealth; the ruse worked and Athens launched the ill-fated
Great Expedition against Syracuse. Afterwards, the temple was left
uncompleted, as we now see it, standing alone amid a profusion of wild
marigolds, borage and wild fennel on this remote green hillside (Photo
6). It is still one of the most intact of all ancient
temples, and one of the most spectacular particularly in this isolated
setting. On the hillside opposite are the excavated remains of the
ancient city with its small theatre looking out across the mountains.
We moved on to the
mountainous coast at the north-western corner of the island to wild-camp
at the Zingaro Natural Reserve. Conservationists had saved this
spectacular terrain from road development; mountainous slopes dropping
down to the craggy
coast-line are covered with dwarf
fan-palms which grow in
profusion among the maquis scrubland. The 6 km walk undulates over
headlands high above the rocky shoreline with mighty limestone mountains
towering overhead. Tiny coves with gleaming white shingle and azure-blue
sea are lined with Opuntia cactus (Photo
7). At this time of the year, the sun is bright without being
overpowering and the plant-life at its best. We spent a similar day
walking around the western coastline of this peninsula with the craggy
pinnacles of Monte Cofano overshadowing us. And our day culminated
with a magnificent sunset trailing golden light across the western sea,
lighting up our wild-camp at Cala Bugato (Photo
8).
