Saying goodbye is never easy...

On Thursday night, the time finally came: we had our farewell dinner, and said our goodbyes.  We had a lovely (very Italian) dinner of mozzarella, prosciutto, tomatoes, grilled veggies, pizza, pasta, and panna cotta.  But we weren't very focused on our food; mostly we were just trying to enjoy our last night together, and not think about the fact that in a few short hours we would be saying goodbye.  We toasted our professors and each other, saying thank you for an amazing term.  When the time came, there were some tears and a lot of hugs.  As a senior, I will not be returning to Carleton in the fall, so I was feeling particularly sad.  Yet I kept reminding myself that the goodbyes were hard because I loved the group so much.  If I weren't sad to say goodbye, it would mean that I hadn't formed the amazing bonds and friendships that I did over the ten weeks.  Besides, with modern technology, staying in touch is a much easier thing to do.  As I sit in a coffee shop back in Northfield, I am texting with one of my friends from the program who is in Prague for a week.

Reflecting back on the term, I am so happy I decided to go to Rome.  I have not even the slightest bit of regret about going.  Going abroad spring term of your senior year is uncommon, and it's a big decision.  It meant leaving behind my friends of four years for my last term in hopes of making new friends in a new city.  I guess I figured that at the very worst, I would be in a cool city for ten weeks, and I felt independent enough to travel on my own even if I didn't make any friends.  Little did I know I would come away with two dozen new friends who mean the world to me.  We traveled together, studied together, laughed together, and cried together.  We saw each other through the adventures and stresses of navigating a new place, and our friendships came away stronger because of it.

I also had the opportunity to get to know a beautiful and friendly country with so much to offer.  We travelled all over Italy, and yet I still feel like I've only scraped the surface; I am so excited to go back!  Rome was an amazing city, with so much history to share with us.  Each day I saw something different and learned something new.  Getting to live in a residential neighborhood with "regular" Italians living their "regular" lives allowed me to sink into life in Rome.  I felt like I was actually living there, that I wasn't just a tourist, because when I went home in the evenings I didn't see any tourists, and I went grocery shopping just like the rest of the neighborhood's residents.

I would like to say "thank you!" to the wonderful students, professors, and country who made my term in Italy some of the best months of my life!

Ciao, Roma!  It's been wonderful!  Until next time...

With my apartment-mates on one of our last nights in Rome--photo credit to Will Schedl

The Sounds of Italy

On this blog, I have shared a lot with you visually, but I thought I would take this opportunity, as I wrap things up to offer you a few thoughts on the sounds of Italy.  If you close your eyes and listen, you can learn a lot about a place, so I will take you on a brief auditory tour of my time in Rome:

Piazza Bologna: Right in my apartment I could hear a few things about the place I was living.  First, every night around 11pm or midnight, I could hear garbage pickup.  In the States, garbage pickup is usually in the morning; not so in Italy, or at least not in our neighborhood.  Second, on the weekend, I could hear the sounds of young people socializing on our piazza.  While many people do go to bars, it is also very common to take a beer to a piazza and hang out there with your friends for the evening.  From the few nights I was up late enough, it seemed that people stayed out on the piazza until 2 or 3am on the weekends.  This was something you could observe throughout the city.  If you walk around on a weekend night, you will see (and hear) people in any of the major piazzas.  On weeknights, people were out in the piazza, but they usually headed a bit earlier.  Third, my room looked out over our apartment's courtyard, and in the early mornings, I could hear the singing of birds through the window. In Assisi too, I came across a cheerful little blackbird singing a beautiful song.  Fourth, the barking of dogs was indicative of something that we quickly learned about Italians: they LOVE dogs.  If I were to guess, I would say that at least every one in three people had a dog.  They were everywhere, and they were all shapes and sizes.  In particular, the Italians seemed to love dachshunds and German Shepherds.  Fifth, we heard many car horns!  When they drive, Italians try to fill every possible little space on the road, and they are not the most patient of drivers.  Also, the number of vespas weaving in and out of traffic complicates things.  This means that Italians hit their car horns way more often than Oregonians or Minnesotans.  

Language: This might be obvious, yes, but throughout my time in Italy, I heard a different language.  It is interesting the ways in which language can change the way you perceive place.  Not only does it cue you in to the fact that you are in a foreign place, but depending on how much you of that language you can comprehend, it can change the way you understand a place.  Italian is a beautiful language, and getting to hear it spoken so often was a treat.  Even when I couldn't understand every word, listening to peoples' tones (and watching their hand gestures--Italians love hand gestures) told a lot about their conversations.  By the end of the trip, I was able to understand much of the informal conversations that I would hear in shops and the grocery store!  

Music: While in Rome, I went to my first opera!  The music was beautiful, and it demonstrated the way in which you can tell a story through music.  In churches we often heard gentle organ music playing, offering a spiritual atmosphere.  In Assisi we heard drumming, rehearsal for a Medieval festival of some sort.  And in Ferrara, we actually ran across one such festival, getting to hear medieval music (horns and drumming) in tandem with flag dancing.  Getting to hear these different musical performances told me something culturally about the places I was in and the way that they see and choose to present their history.

Water: As an Oregonian, I love the sound of rain, and I got a lot of it while we were in Italy.  In Rome, when it rained, it poured, and listening to it from my apartment felt very cozy.  On the northern trip, it sprinkled a lot of the time, and because I brought an umbrella, I listened to the tap tap of the rain as I toured the various cities.  In Sicily, I heard the sound of the waves crashing.  When I was out swimming in the water, I could hear the waves rushing all around, and when we stood out on the pier to watch the sunset, each crashing wave sounded like a mini bomb going off.  Listening to the ocean reminds you how rough and wild it can be.

Anyway, I guess was I am trying to get at, is that we observe a lot of different things as we travel and get a sort of sensory overload, but sometimes it is interesting to isolate those senses and understand what each one tells you.  By showing you so many photos, I've shown you what I learned through sight, but I also learned about and experienced the places I was in through sound, smell and taste (see the Sicily food post for a taste example!) as well, and I thought it would be fun to share a bit about that too!            

Final adventures in Firenze!

For our very last weekend, my Cinque Terre group (plus a few, minus a few) headed to Florence for two days filled with art, shopping, and good food!  Like Venice, I had travelled to Florence with my family about ten years ago, but I didn't remember much about the city, and I was pretty sure I would have a greater appreciation for the art, etc. now that I am older.  Right away, we could tell that the main part of the city was very small and walkable because it was only about a ten minute walk from the train station to our hostel.  We were extremely well-situated--about six blocks from the Duomo, and two blocks from the Uffizi!  We arrived in the evening, so our first introduction to the Duomo was in the dark, and it was beautiful.  We had booked early morning tickets for the Uffizi the next morning (to avoid crowds, if possible), so we headed straight to bed.

We got up bright and early the next morning, grabbed coffee and a cornetto (also known as a croissant), and headed to our first Florence museum!  The Uffizi was amazing!  It is huge, and has an extremely impressive collection.  We spent almost three hours there, wandering from room to room.  The museum is set up in a U-shape with two long hallways, and a shorter connecting hallway (the bottom of the U).  Off of each of the long hallways, are the smaller rooms that house the majority of the collection.  The hallways themselves are lined with ancient statues.  I will give you a couple of my highlights from the museum: the Botticelli room and ironically, given that I was in Italy, the Dutch art collection.  After our visit we each picked up a book or poster in the museum shop, and then headed across the river for lunch.  We crossed the Ponte Vecchio, lined with expensive jewelry stores, and headed another few blocks to an alley that housed a Trattoria that I had been to with my family ten years ago, called the Quattro Leoni (the Four Lions).  My dad had reminded me that this was a delicious place, so we decided to try it again.  It lived up to expectations, even ten years later!  I had a pasta with Tuscan sauce (a flavorful meat sauce), which was delicious, and others had amazing pasta dishes as well.  The atmosphere of the restaurant was also wonderful.  There was a lot of wood and brick, giving a wine cellar kind of a feel.  After lunch, we stopped in our first Florentine paper store (Florence is famous for its beautiful paper and stationery, and there are paper stores throughout the city).  I think everyone left with a card, stationery, poster, or journal of some sort, and their wallets at least a little bit lighter.  Next, we went to Santa Croce, a church with chapels by Giotto.  The frescoes in the apse of the church are currently undergoing restoration, and so the apse is filled from floor to ceiling with scaffolding.  If we had scheduled ahead, we could have taken a tour up on the scaffolding of the frescoes and the restoration project.  Sadly, we hadn't realized that this was an option, and since we would only be there for two days, we wouldn't have time to do it.  Despite this, the church was quite beautiful and we spent about an hour wandering around and enjoying the various side chapels.  In one of the chapels, there was a relic of St. Francis (His cloak!  Or at least one of them...), which made us smile, because we had studied St. Francis earlier in the term and spent a wonderful day in his hometown of Assisi.  Next, we went into the Duomo, which was actually quite plain on the inside.  My friends decided to climb the dome, but because I had a headache, and a dislike of heights, I split off to check out the leather market.  Finally, we met up for dinner at a restaurant by Santa Croce that had been recommended by another friend on our program.  Here, I had spinach gnocchi with salmon sauce all sitting in a baked parmesan bowl (literally a bowl made of parmesan!).  The food was really good, but so rich that I couldn't finish mine on my own (luckily, when you travel with boys, they can always finish your food for you!).  We  delicious appetizers of cheese, salami, and vegetables!  After dinner, we walked around the city in the evening, spending some time in Santa Croce's piazza, and then heading over to the Duomo.  When we reached the Duomo, there was some sort of candlelit procession going on.  People were processing from the church holding candles.  There was a wide variety of people--monks, nuns, and groups holding up banners.  At one point, a man walked by under a canopy held by four people.  He looked like someone important in the Church, maybe a bishop, but we couldn't tell for sure.  He held something in front of his face (some religious object?), so we couldn't really see him.  Others in the procession just looked like normal citizens and/or tourists, so I thought maybe they had held a special service in the Cathedral, that had ended with the procession, and anyone who wanted could take part.  The procession was quite long, and we watch for about half an hour.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, running across events like this are part of the fun of traveling, and thus far in my travels, I've had pretty good luck just happening upon things (flag dancing, midnight services, etc.).  At this time, the doors to the baptistery were open, and so a friend and I were able to peek in a get a look at the beautiful mosaic ceilings (without having to pay to go in). 

The piazza next to our hostel--the Uffizi is just behind it

Palazzo Vecchio

And by night

Ponte Vecchio

Inside Santa Croce

The scaffolding in Santa Croce

Yay for St. Francis!

Santa Croce by day--yes, the sky actually looked like that!

Santa Croce by night--what a photogenic church!

The Duomo and campanile

Inside the Duomo

Candle trees inside the Duomo

The famous gold doors of the baptistery

The candlelit procession

The Duomo at night

The next morning, we headed to the Accademia to spend the morning with David.  As it turned out, there actually wasn't much else in the museum.  It was small, and mostly housed religious art.  There were a few other things I enjoyed though.  They had an exhibit about civil government in Florence during the Middle Ages, and the interactions between the church and government.  This exhibit was interesting, particularly because it was relevant to the time period we had been studying.  There was also an exhibit on restoration, in which the museum displayed some its paintings, and then had explanations letting you know how they had been restored, etc.  I am always fascinated in how works have been changed over time, and so this exhibit was fun for me.  There was one painting which had originally depicted Eve naked, but at some point in time, she had been clothed in a fur robe because the owner was offended by her nakedness.  When the painting came into the hands of the Accademia, she was restored to her original nakedness because the museum decided they wanted to keep the original intent of the painter visible in the painting.  Finally, in the hall leading up to Michelangelo's David, there were about ten of Michelangelo's unfinished statues.  It was amazing to see how he possibly went from a block of marble to something as beautiful and polished as his David.  The David was beautiful, and I think what amazed me most was its size.  I had thought he was about the same size as the Bernini statues we saw at the Villa Borghese (probably about 7 or 8 feet tall?), but he was about twice that size (about 14 feet tall).  After the Accademia, my friends headed to the Medici chapel.  Instead, I went to another chapel that had belonged to the Medici family, housed in the Palazzo Medici-Riccardi.  The chapel, called the Cappella dei Magi, is from the mid-fifteenth century, and is covered in frescoes by Benozzo Gozzoli.  The frescoes depict the journey of the magi to Bethlehem, but are also an excuse to depict the important people who arrived in Florence for the Council of Florence in 1438-1439 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magi_Chapel).  The frescoes show a procession of people on horseback, making their way through the beautiful and wild countryside.  This chapel was probably one of my very favorite things I have seen on the trip.  I found it absolutely gorgeous, and I went through the chapel twice, so that I could take it all in.  I wasn't allowed to take pictures in the chapel, but if you go here: http://rolfgross.dreamhosters.com/TuscanyFrescoes-Web/Gozzoli.html and scroll down to the chapel in the Medici-Riccardo Palace, you will get a good sense for it (although the colors were much richer in person).  After a visit to the Brancacci chapel, which is sometimes called the "Sistine chapel of the early Renaissance," and has frescoes by Masolino da Panicale and later finished by Filippino Lippi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brancacci_Chapel).  Finally, I finished my day by climbing the campanile, or bell tower with two of my friends.  We hiked up the 400+ stairs until we reach the top.  Luckily, the stairs are enclosed, and at the very top you are entirely enclosed in a sort of cage, so if feels very secure even though you are so high up (the top of the Duomo only has a waist-high railing).  We got an amazing view of the city, the countryside, and of the Duomo!  We could wave to the people who had climbed the dome!  The view was spectacular, the wind was blowing our hair in all directions, and it was the perfect way to end a wonderful two days!  

A view from the bell tower

The dome from the bell tower!

I was right to suspect that I would appreciate Florence more the second time.  The city just had so much to offer in terms of art, and it was generally just a beautiful city.  I loved how walkable it was, and how you never went more than a few blocks without finding a sizable piazza (although this is case almost everywhere in Italy).  I didn't like how touristy Florence was, but that is to be expected, particularly now that we are into summer vacation for a lot of people.  Also, by reserving morning tickets to the two major museums, we were able to avoid the really bad crowds.  The churches and chapels really weren't very crowded which was nice.  I think the leather market was the worst in terms of crowds and people in your face trying to sell you things, but that limited my shopping, so maybe that's a good thing!  I am really glad that we decided to take a few days to see Florence--it was a great way to end a great Italian term!

The group by the Ponte Vecchio--photo credit to Trey Brademan

       

Rachel's Compact Dictionary of Sicilian Food

Hello!  As I mentioned in my earlier post, it felt like much of my visit to Sicily involved eating good food, so I thought I would do an entry detailing just what this food was like.  WARNING TO THE READER: Do not read while hungry :)  Enjoy!

Arancine: A fried yellow rice ball filled with stuff in the center.  From my extensive research, I think that they come in two varieties: one that is filled with a sort of meat stew with peas, and a second that is filled with ham and melted cheese.  I tried both, and both were good!  I think I slightly preferred the meat stew version, because the other was a bit too rich.

Pasta Lido: Pasta with fresh tomato sauce, eggplant, swordfish, & parsley.  I ate this dish twice, and the second time we were at a Middle Eastern-style restaurant and they added fresh mint on top as well.  I was first intrigued by it because it boasts the same name as my dog (Lido), but when I read the ingredients, I knew I had to try it--the combination sounded delicious.  It was!

Mixed Grilled Seafood: In Cefalu, several of us ordered an appetizer of mixed grilled seafood.  We ended up with giant grilled squid, prawns (shells and all--the entire shrimp), and swordfish.  It was so simple and delicious!  Just add a squeeze of lemon on top, and you're good to go.  I had never had squid that was prepared quite so simply, and I was impressed!

Freshly caught seafood at the Palermo pier

A seafood shop in Monreale

Cannoli: A cannolo, meaning "little tube," is a rolled piece of fried pastry dough that is filled with a ricotta filling.  It often also has chocolate chips or pistachio in the filling, as well as other garnishes on the top.  Sicily is famous for its cannoli, and so we tried them in several places.  I got particularly good little cannoli in both Cefalù and Monreale.

Gelato: Yes we get this in Rome, but I two particularly good gelato experiences in Sicily.  The first was at a place in Cefalù, which had the most amazing mango flavor.  I tasted like I was eating chilled fresh mangoes.  In Monreale, I found a gelato shop with amazing looking ice cream sandwiches and chocolate covered cones.  I chose a little cone with mint gelato covered in dark chocolate.  It was fantastic, and the small size was perfect because the chocolate was so rich!

Chocolate covered cone with mint gelato!

 

Semifreddo: Semifreddo is a class of semi-frozen desserts, and they come in different varieties, such as ice cream cakes or frozen custards.  The one that we had at group dinner was a rich semi-frozen custard  (a slice of a loaf).  Ours was a strong almond flavor with almond pieces scattered.  It was quite tasty, although I think if I'm going to get something frozen, I'm still a gelato-girl.

Assorted Pastries: Sicily is also known for its amazing pastries (in addition to cannoli).  Our very first day in Palermo, we went to a pastry store (see pictures below), and I got an amazing pastry that had chocolate cake layers (soaked in rum, I think), whipped cream, and amazing tiny, very sweet strawberries!  As I mentioned in my earlier post, in Palermo I got a Cannoli-style pastry that was filled instead with Nutella and coated in dark chocolate.  It was so rich and amazing!

Marzipan: Marzipan, the infamous (to most people, although it does have its fans...) almond paste was invented in Palermo by a group of nuns.  I remembered hating marzipan as a child, so I bought some for two of my friends on the trip instead because it was too beautiful to pass up, and I knew they loved it.  Most of the marzipan that we saw was designed as decorated as fruit, and it was almost too pretty to eat.  Finally as we were in the airport waiting for our plane, I gave in and decided I couldn't leave Palermo without trying marzipan again.  I went to the beautiful sweets shop in the airport, and got myself a marzipan strawberry.  I liked it better than I thought, but it was still a bit too sweet and the flavor a bit too strong for my taste.  Still, I'm glad I tried it!

Beautiful fresh cherries in Monreale!

Fun in the Sicilian sun!

Palermo: 

Last weekend we headed off on our final trip as a class--to Sicily!!  We met at the train station at 6am to catch our train to the airport.  We would then fly to Palermo where we would stay for three nights.  Our purpose in Sicily was to get a sense for the construction of the Norman kings who pulled aspects from very multiple cultures for architectural and artistic inspiration.  In particular, their buildings are very Byzantine and Islamic in their style.  After checking in at our hotel, we had free time to get lunch before meeting at the Palazzo Reale dei Normanni.  **Before getting any farther, I want to let you know that I am going to do a separate blog post about the food of Sicily (coming soon to a theater near you) because there was a lot of good food!  So anyway, we grabbed lunches, details forthcoming, and headed over to the palace.  As we arrived, there was some sort of protest going on outside a government building, including people sitting in the street blocking traffic.  Our professors suspected it was because that day was the anniversary of the death of a judge who did a lot of anti-mafia work.  He was murdered for his views and his work.  Because of the nature of the day, it had been chosen as a good day for a worker's protest.  It was interesting to see politics at work, and to understand some current local issues.

When we entered the palace, the first place we headed was the famous Cappella Palatina.  The chapel is beautifully ornamented on all sides with Byzantine-style narrative cycle mosaics.  In addition to the narrative mosaics, which are high up in the apse and along the sides of the nave, the walls of the aisles were also covered in beautiful Islamic designs.  These mosaics were at a height such that we could see the individual tiles, and I could see that the colors were rich and beautiful.  They included bright blues and deep purples--some of my favorite colors!  Following our visit to the chapel, we got to look around the rest of the palace (or parts at least--Sicily's parliament now meets in one wing of the castle) Before I continue, I just want to mention my favorite room in the palace: Roger's Hall.  It was a small little room in the living quarters of the palace, which King Roger II had ornamented with mosaics in a similar manner as his chapel.  The difference was that the content was secular, depicting plants, animals, and mythical creatures.  It was a beautiful little room, and presumably Roger used it for entertaining or something of the sort.  We then headed to our next church, the Martorana.  When we arrived, there was a wedding in progress so we went next door to a little church called chiesa di San Cataldo.  This church was built in the 12th century, but the inside was never completed because its patron was disgraced and executed.  This meant that the inside was really quite plain.  There were three small domes on the top of the church, giving it a very interesting shape inside.  The inside was all stone with no ornamentation on the walls, and spoliated (reused--probably from ancient Roman times) columns.  For some reason this plain little building spoke to me more than any of the large intricately adorned churches have.  The plainness gave me a good sense for the church's shape and it's geometry, and I found it very beautiful.  As corny as it is, I think this tourist website describes it aptly: "With dour stone walls and a refreshing lack of interior decoration, it reeks of ancient legend; I wouldn't have been surprised to see a Knight of the Round Table kneeling at the altar" (http://palermo.for91days.com/2011/12/20/the-church-of-san-cataldo/).  At this point in the day, as we sat on the pews in the cool interior of the church, I could see that our early morning wakeup call was really starting to get to people.  People were drifting off right and left despite our guide talking to us.  Luckily, we were almost done for the day, but we had one more very interesting stop ahead of us: we were finally able to enter the Martorana!  There were several interesting aspects of this church.  First, were the Islamic elements: There was a great carved wooden door, and a column with an Arabic inscription from the Quran.  The thought is that the this column might have been repurposed from a mosque.  Finally, there was a mosaic depicting Roger II, the Norman king who commissioned the church, being crowned king by Christ who is appears to be floating slightly off the ground.  This was an interesting commentary on the king's legitimacy and where it comes from.  From there we were free until dinner.  We headed back to the hotel to et cleaned up and went around the corner for group dinner, which was at a restaurant in the same piazza as our hotel.  Dinner was lovely and fish-filled!  This included an entire half fish on our plate.  I didn't like looking at its eye and mouth, but as long as I kept my gaze on the meat, all was well.  Because I was exhausted to the point of not feeling well (due to our early morning departure), I headed back to the hotel early to shower and go to bed.

"Our" piazza in Palermo

A Palermo archway

Palazzo Reale dei Normanni

The courtyard

Everyone needs an ATM in their palace

Cappella Palatina--facing the altar

The Cappella Palatina--facing the throne at the back

Cappella Palatina

Cappella Palatina

Mosaics in the Cappella Palatina

Mosaics in the Cappella Palatina

Lotus blossoms in the Cappella Palatina

A mosaic in the Cappella Palatina 

Cappella Palatina

A beautiful mosaic floor (from the Cappella Palatina, I think)

The outside of the chiesa di San Cataldo

Inside San Cataldo

Inside San Cataldo

Inside San Cataldo

The Martorana

The mosaic of Roger II being crowned by Christ (in the Martorana)

A Quran passage on a column in the Martorana

Islamic-style doors in the Martorana

Cefalù: 

The next morning we had a lovely breakfast at the hotel.  Our hotel had a beautiful breakfast area/common space, and they had a REAL espresso machine.  They made our drinks to order, which made our day a bit brighter from the start!  I went for a brief walk around our neighborhood with a friend before meeting back up with our group to catch our train to Cefalù, a beach town east of Palermo on the northern coast of Sicily.  We were all quite excited, because after a quick visit to the Cefalù duomo, we were free for a day at the beach!

After our visit to the duomo, we went next door to the cloister.  Around the edge of the cloister, the capitals of the columns (tops of the columns) had been carved with scenes from the bible, and if you walked all the way around, it told a story.  My favorite column depicted two griffins.  After our visit to the cloister, several of us joined one of our professors for lunch at a seafood restaurant on the pier.  The view was lovely, as was the company, which made for a relaxing lunch.  I had Pasta Lido (see next blog post) which was delicious.  After lunch, I headed to the beach to find some friends who had already been there for over an hour.  I dropped my backpack at the beach with the sunbathers, and then went for a quick walk.  I had seen signs around Palermo and Cefalù for a horse show that was starting that day, and I wanted to check it out (It was show-jumping competition--the same kind of competition that I used to do.  Now I just ride for fun.).  The show grounds were just a few blocks down, and right across from the beach.  The show was small, with just one arena set up.  There were a few people riding around in the warmup right, but it was clear that the show hadn't really started yet.  It probably wouldn't really get going until later that evening.  After picking up a few Sicilian treats in town to take home with me, I headed back and joined my friends in the water.  The surf was very rough, and we alternated waving-jumping and wave-diving (and occasionally just getting knocked over and rolled).  It reminded me of my childhood playing in the Pacific Ocean off the Oregon Coast--a similarly rough surf, but much colder water (in Oregon).  After a day at the beach, we headed back to the same restaurant on the pier (I was the only one who had already been there for lunch), and had a wonderfully long and fish-filled dinner.  After dinner, most people headed back to the train station, but a few of us decided to stay and watch the sunset.  First, we grabbed some gelato, and then made our way up some stairs to a higher lookout point on the pier (sort of like a wall that you could walk on top of, but it had very secure railings.  Getting up high was a good choice, because the surf had gotten really rough by this point, and was crashing against the rocks and sending spray many feet up in the air.  The sunset was one of the most beautiful I had seen in a long time.  There was a line of clouds just above the horizon, and so just before the sun set in the water, it got a line of shadow across it (see photos below).  It was pretty darn amazing.  We finally (reluctantly) went back and caught a late train back to Palermo. It was quite a day!  Lots of time for fun in the sun in a gorgeous place!

The cathedral in Cefalu

                                     

The Cefalù cloister

Carved capitals in the Cefalù cloister

The griffins were my favorite!

Beautiful Cefalù

A Cefalù cat

The pier

I made it to the beach!

Looking back at the town

Beautiful!

Evening falls

And sunset begins

Waves crashing against the rocks on the pier

The sun going down behind a line of clouds--life doesn't get much more beautiful than that

Monreale:

The next day we started by visiting a site in Palermo--Castello della Zisa.  The castle was another site of the Norman kings and had been built as part of a hunting retreat.  William I began construction on the castle, but it was finished under his son, William II.  Like many of the Norman building that we had seen already, the Zisa had a very strong Islamic influence.  In fact, the name Zisa comes from the Arabic al-Aziz, meaning "noble," "glorious," or "magnificent."  The main room on the first floor of the palace had a beautiful water installation which led from inside the palace to the outside.  On the top floor, there was another very open room that felt a bit like a mosque, including the openness and lightness of the entire room, and the sunken floor in the center part of the space.  In addition, it was also interesting to hear about the castle's innovative water and air conditioning systems that were made possible by the Islamic artisans who worked on the castle.  Our professor described the Zisa as a "pleasure palace," a place made for the sole purpose of relaxation and sport.  Sounds good to me!  It was fun to imagine how much land must have once been attached to the castle.  It not sits in a pretty bustling part of the city, and only a tiny portion of the gardens remain.

Next we were off to the town of Monreale, which was about half an hour outside of Palermo.  Monreale was up on a hill, and once we got of the bus, we climbed up some stairs and a slight hill to reach the main piazza in the town.  Monreale is known for its spectacular cathedral with one of the best preserved mosaic programs.  William II began work on the cathedral in 1174, and it was dedicated in 1182.  Which sounds like a pretty quick turn around when you see how intricate and beautiful the cathedral is.  Like the Cappella Palatina, there were mosaics in the apse and along either side of the nave.  My favorite part of the cathedral was the narrative cycle from the old testament around the walls of the nave.  There were depictions of the creation of the world, Noah's ark, the tower of Babel, etc.  They were all beautiful, and it was interesting to see how they were represented.  There was also a mosaic in the apse which depicted William II being crowned king by Christ, who is sitting on a throne.  This is like the mosaic that we saw in the Matorana in Palermo depicting Roger II being crowned by Christ.  Clearly, there was an interesting set of theological beliefs and ideas about the legitimacy of the kingdom that remained strong among the Norman kings for at least several generations.  Following our visit to the cathedral, we visited the cloister next door.  Like the cloister in Cefalu, this cloister had amazing carved capitals, but the bodies of the columns were also adorned in amazing black, red, and gold mosaics patterns.  This cloister was one of the best preserved that we have seen so far, and the effect of all that beautiful color from the mosaics was quite stunning.  In addition, it was a beautiful, sunny day, which lit up the garden in the center as well.  We were then free for the rest of the afternoon to get lunch and wander the town.  There were several fresh fruit and vegetable stands in town, so I grabbed some food to go and ate in the sunny piazza.  Then I wandered, and picked up a few Sicilian souvenirs before heading back to the bus.

Getting to visit two small Sicilian towns was wonderful!  Both Cefalù and Monreale were gorgeous, and getting out of the bustling city was refreshing (although not as big as Rome, Palermo is a big city--the fifth largest in Italy).  And getting to have free time in each place, meant that we could explore, find our favorite lunch and gelato spots, and soak up some sun.    

That evening was the championship game for the Champions League, one of Europe's soccer leagues.  This year, there would be two German teams in the final.  Several of my friends wanted to watch the game at an Italian bar, so we set off for an early dinner.  We found a Middle Eastern place which served falafel and kebabs in addition to other more traditional Sicilian options.  It was a nice warm evening, so we sat outside for dinner.  As it turned out, this place had a large TV facing the outdoor seating area, and we had a good view of the game.  Instead of trying to find a new place, people ordered some beers and stayed put for the duration of the game.  I headed home before it was over, and had a nice nighttime walk back through Palermo.  In particular, I passed the Teatro Massimo at night, which was all lit up (see photo below).  It had been another wonderful Sicilian day, and I was looking forward to my final day in Palermo!      

The outside of the Zisa

Inside the Zisa

Inside the Zisa

The water installation on the first floor

The Zisa

The cathedral in Monreale

The first piazza in Monreale

The second beautiful piazza of Monreale

A pretty little town

Noah's ark

Making day and night

Decorations on the walls

The floors

A view looking towards the apse

The ceiling

The cloister

Carved capitals

Amazing columns

The view from Monreale

Teatro Massimo by night

Palermo, Day 2:

Our last day in Palermo was a free day, and with a list of museums and sites in hand, we went our separate ways to explore the city.  I went with one other friend in search of the Museo del Mare, or Museum of the Sea.  The museum was at the other end of the city on the water, so we headed down to the pier to walk along the water.  When we got down to the pier (around 9:30 or so), there were fishermen with they daily catch already displayed.  There were several kinds of fish and an octopus.  One of the fishermen could tell that I wanted to take a picture of his fish, but didn't want to offend because I wouldn't be able to buy anything, and he waved me over and told me I should feel free to take photos.  As I was snapping away, and my friend and I admired the fish, one fisherman picked up the giant octopus and held it out for us to feel (slippery!).  Then he handed it to my friend so that I could take a picture.  She was very game, taking it without hesitation.  We all got a good laugh (fishermen included) while I took her picture.  We thanked them profusely and then headed on our way.  It was about a forty-minute walk to the museum, but when we hit the street that we were supposed to turn on, it didn't quite feel right.  We walked down it for awhile, but it was all residential and a bit run-down, and we didn't see anything resembling a museum.  There was one "museo" sign that was broken in half, and pointing in no direction in particular.  We were pretty sure we must have taken a wrong turn, so we headed back up the street to look at our map again.  We wandered around for awhile, and still couldn't figure out where we were supposed to be, so we finally used my friend's iPhone.  It told us that we had been on the correct street originally, so we headed back that way.  This time we stopped to ask a couple of people if we were headed in the right direction, and they assured us that, yes, the Museo del Mare really was down that way.  Finally we reached the end of the street and all we saw were some barriers in front of an old building.  It turned out that the building was the museum, and we had to slip through the barriers to reach it (people could fit, I think it was there to keep cars out).  The museum looked closed, but as we were admiring the outside of the building, a man came out and told us that he would open the museum for us.  It was a small little place with just a few rooms, and everything was in Italian.  He walked us around and gave us a personal tour in (somewhat broken) English.  They had models of ships, old engines, steering wheels, cannons, an old horn, documents, etc.  Following the museum visit we walked up a more main street in that part of town.  There were families out and about coming out of church.  We stopped in a bakery to use the bathroom, and I got an amazing pastry that was a rolled soft cookie of some sort (think cannoli shape) filled with nutella and coated with dark chocolate.  It was amazingly good!  After that, we headed back to our hotel via the street that goes directly through the center of town.  We started out in a slightly grubbier area, but soon in turned into a fancy shopping district with stores, coffee shops, a main square and a park.  I hadn't loved Palermo when we first arrived, but I think this day solidified my love for the city.  After having walked through most of the city on a sunny day, I realized that it was a beautiful and friendly place, with a lot more to offer than I initially realized.  When we reached our hotel, we saw that there was a flea market in our piazza, and we took a quick look.  I found a fun little framed print.  Our weekend in Sicily was truly wonderful, and I think just the break that we needed towards the end of the trip.  I can't wait to go back to Sicily some day and explore more of the island.           

The fisherman with his octopus

My friend, Noelani, got to hold it!

Today's catch

The pier

Remains of an old boat

Outside the Museo del Mare

Museo del Mare

Museo del Mare

An old ship engine

Cannons!

Pretty Palermo

One of the main squares in Palermo

Teatro Massimo by day