“Amazing” doesn’t begin to describe the enormous mosaics inside Monreale Cathedral, in Palermo, Sicily. One step inside, and we were all in awe. Our local tour guide did a fabulous job detailing the history and explaining the stories depicted in the mosaic scenes throughout the huge cathedral.
Considered one of the greatest examples of Norman architecture, construction of the cathedral began in 1172 and was completed in 1267. It is just one of many UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Sicily.
The Byzantine-style glass mosaics, totaling 70,000 square feet, were created between the late 12th and the mid-13th centuries by both local and Venetian masters. These 24 carat gold leaf mosaics are the largest in the world.
The cathedral is incredibly well preserved thanks to it being built on a hill away from the sea and not being a military target.
(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)
This is just a part of the cathedral and doesn’t include most of the sides and huge area behind me.
Celling
Floor mosaic
Following our excellent tour, we had time on our own to explore the streets surrounding the cathedral.
Looking up at a very small portion of the cathedral’s exterior
View from outside the cathedral.
This is Trinacaria (meaning 3 points), the symbol of Sicily. It represents the shape of the island, which resembles a triangle. Click here to read more.
In the afternoon, we continued to Segesta, the topic of my next post.
Next up: SICILY & AMALFI COAST #7: SCENES OF SEGESTA
There is so much more to Sicily than the Mafia, but the first thing that comes to mind for many Americans when they think of Sicily is the Mafia. This is especially true for those who saw “The Godfather” movies. (I am probably one of the few in the 60’s and older age groups who have not seen any of them.)
Since the Mafia is such a big part of Sicily’s history and current reality, Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) chose the Mafia for its “Controversial Topic” and had guest speakers share their stories and knowledge with us.
This is where it got very interesting. The first speaker, Gino, was very much against the Mafia, because his father, a tailor, was forced to make suits for Dr. Michele Navarra, the head of the Navarra crime family, in Corleone, Sicily. (If Gino’s father had refused, there would have been a BIG problem. When the Mafia says to do something, you do it.)
The second speaker, Angelo, was the son of Bernardo Provenzano, chief of the Sicilian Mafia clan, Corleonesi, who backed mob boss “Lucky” Luciano Leggio in the ambush and murder of Dr. Navarra. After a failed hit in 1963, Provenzano became a fugitive for 43 years before being captured in 2006. He died in prison 10 years later.
Meanwhile, Angelo became a tour guide, speaking about the Sicilian Mafia, much to the dismay of Mafia victims, such as Gino. Check out that link, because the article talks about Angelo being hired in 2015 by Overseas Adventure Travel to speak about the Mafia. And, by the way, members of the Costra Nostra (Italian for “Mafia”) don’t refer to themselves as “Mafia” because they are “offended” by that term. (I have so much I could say about that alone!)
So, we now have two men with us, Gino, who despises everything the Mafia represents, and Angelo, the son of a Mafia crime boss (who is not in the Mafia himself). They are are not only in the same building, but the same room, setting up audiovisual equipment to speak with us. They were together only briefly for the preparation, but they never looked at each other. You could cut the tension with a knife. Not wanting to be obvious (and not even knowing if I was permitted to do so), I shot this quick photo of the two, with our tour leader, Francesco, in the middle:
Angelo, Francesco, and Gino
After Angelo left the room, Gino began his talk. Corleone, as we learned, became the headquarters of Costra Nostra, because it was a strategic location for the grain trade and is located between two strategic cities.
Corleone wasn’t big enough for two crime families to coexist, so the families of Dr. Navarra and “Lucky” Luciano Liggio went to war. (At the same time, “Lucky” was also setting up a sister organization in New Orleans, U.S.A., which was more profitable.) If you were in Corleone at the time (or anywhere in Sicily when all hell broke loose), you either decided to leave Sicily or show allegiance to the Mafia. If you joined, you became a murderer.
In 1958, the war between the two crime families finally ended when Dr. Navarra was murdered and his family was no longer #1 in Sicily. The war had left 200 dead.
Fast-forward to the 1980’s, 475 Mafia members were arrested and put on trial, resulting in 338 convictions. The Maxi Trial, which took place in Palermo, lasted for six years and was considered the most significant trial ever against the Sicilian Mafia as well as the biggest trial in world history.
It wasn’t over. The Mafia retaliated two years later by murdering a Palermo judge and his son, as well as others in the coming years. It has gone on and on, and the devastation and crime inflicted on innocent people never stops. In 2007, it was estimated that the total income of illegal Mafia activity was approximately 44 BILLION euros.
Currently, the most influential Mafia is in the Calabria region, in the south of Italy’s mainland. These are some of their criminal activities: protection rackets (protection from theft by non-Mafia, protection from competition, protection of territories), vote buying, smuggling, contract bid rigging, loan sharking; and, of course, murder, when they see fit.
I have only scratched the surface of the Sicilian Mafia, but this gives you an idea. After listening to Gino, it was fascinating to hear Angelo’s story of what it was like to grow up with his father, the crime boss. Several of us doubted how he could have grown up with his father being a fugitive crime boss and not understood why they were in hiding, but he was a child at the time and now seemed sincere enough. Angelo also made it clear that he didn’t support or condone the Mafia in any way. Still, there was no tolerance for him by Gino, and that was palpable.
Coming up next: SICILY & AMALFI COAST #5: CHARMING CASTELBUONO
After another day of poking around Palermo on our own and getting adjusted to the seven-hour time difference, our tour with Overseas Adventure Travel began. We met our tour leader, Francesco, and the other fourteen members of our tour group, before setting out on a walking tour of the city. Although Francesco is a Palermo native and knows his city like the back of his hand, Italy requires separate tour leaders and tour guides, each being licensed in a separate classification. So, our tour guide met us at our hotel and led the group through the city, with Francesco bringing up the rear.
Palermo is the fifth-largest city in Italy, so our walking tour covered just some of the highlights—a few which I wrote about in my previous posts; so, I will skip those and show you what was new for us.
First, a little bit about Sicily and Palermo. This map highlights the itinerary of our tour in red:
(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)
Sicily, located off the peninsula of mainland Italy, is an island of 4.7 million people in the Mediterranean Sea. First and foremost, although Sicilians are Italian and the island is part of Italy, the locals think of themselves as Sicilians first, and Italians second. They are very proud to be Sicilian and even have their own dialect, which they speak in addition to Italian.
Another thing Sicilians are clear about: They aren’t fond of northern Italians (and the feelings are mutual), which has its roots dating back to the 1860’s. Government power, including the police and army, shifted from southern Italy to the north, and economic wealth was (and still is) centered there as well. The south, including Sicily, is poor, which created a vacuum for the mafia to step in.
One of the reasons Sicily is poor is because Sicilian government is corrupt. Politicians get paid more in Sicily than anywhere else in Italy or the rest of Europe. Basically, they are ripping off the taxpayers, so the politicians and mafia (often the same) are the only Sicilians making out financially. If you get elected to parliament in Sicily, it’s like winning the lottery. You would serve a 2-year term but get paid for the rest of your life. The bottom line is the system doesn’t work for the benefit of the people, only for the politicians. One example of this is the money distributed to Italy and Sicily by the European Union. The politicians skim off the top before the rest trickles down in a way that benefits the common Sicilian.
The unemployment rate in Sicily is also steep—38% for the 18-35 age group. In contrast, it is only 2.9% in Switzerland. Overall, Italian unemployment is the highest in Sicily and the Calabria region, also located in the south.
It is most difficult to get a job in the private sector, because they will only hire experienced workers. New college graduates don’t have experience, but they don’t want to work outside of their field of study; so, they won’t work. Many go on earning additional advanced degrees and live with their parents.
Now, a bit about Palermo: Located in northwest Sicily, it was founded in 735 B.C., and the current population is around 626.000 with its metropolitan area totaling about 1.2 million. The city is Sicily’s economic and cultural capital, full of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
The city has quite a complicated history. Due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean, it was the victim of a succession of invaders: The Phoenicians, Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Normans, Swabians, and French all conquered Palermo at one time or another. Fast forward to World War II, the city was heavily bombed. Sheesh! The poor city couldn’t catch a break.
One of the things I enjoyed about Palermo was the way vehicle traffic was diverted away from the main streets of the old city center until late at night. Pedestrians could walk down the middle of the streets without the noise, pollution, and chaos of traffic. It didn’t stop the e-bikes and scooters from whizzing past, though, at times nearly colliding with pedestrians stopping to take a photograph or to talk with each other. I’m guessing that all of us in the group had a close call at one time or another!
Following our walking tour and free time in the afternoon, we regrouped for our “Controversial Topic,” one of OAT’s features on each tour. I’ll give you one guess as to what that topic would be… I’ll tell you all about it in my next post!
Meanwhile, here are some photos shot around Palermo:
Our group had a private visit at the wonderful Opera Dei Pupi, a family-run puppet theater that has been passed down through the generations:
Our private demonstration and Q&A session with the owner was hilarious!
During my free time, I stumbled upon a street lined with shop after shop of seamstresses sewing table cloths and other items made from bolts of colorful fabrics– many with a lemon motif, which is a symbol of Sicily. There are lemon trees everywhere on this island!
Next up: SICILY & THE AMALFI COAST #4: THE SAVAGE SICILIAN MAFIA
As usual, we chose to arrive early to allow ourselves to adjust to the time change. Although we knew the tour would include a visit to Capo Market, Bruce and I decided to go on our own after settling into our hotel room upon arrival.
We love visiting markets; it’s one of our favorite things to do when we travel. Markets always present wonderful photo opportunities, they’re a great place to grab some fresh and tasty food, and it’s fun to watch the locals doing transactions with the vendors. Never a dull moment.
Although I had Euros left over from our previous trip, we took advantage of having access to the ATM along the way and picked up some more Euros. Before we leave the country, I always look up my bank’s website to see if it has a partner bank in the country I’m visiting. It does have a partner in Italy, so using their ATM saved us some money on fees.
Since we were going to walk to the ATM, followed by the market, and possibly some other stops on the way back to the hotel, Google Maps came in handy. I was thankful to have an Airalo e-SIMM for my phone, so I could switch it on when I was away from the hotel’s WIFI, and use the step-by-step route instructions for our walk.
Now, for a shameless promo: If you decide to try Airalo, you will receive $3 off and I will receive $3 off my next order if you use my referral code: ELAINE7474. I spent $66 to get 20 GB of data, and it’s good for one year. Since purchasing it last July, I have used it in Peru, England, Ireland, Sicily, and Turkiye. It was well worth the $66 just for using Google Maps for walking routes! Besides, you can set it up at home before you leave town, so you won’t have the same hassles some of our Turkiye group members had when they purchased an E-SIMM at the airport in Istanbul. They paid A LOT more, it didn’t work, and it was a nightmare for them—long story.
Airalo switched on, and more Euros tucked away, we continued to the market. Capo Street Market (Mercato del Capo), has been in existence for many years and was historically famous for its meat trade. Currently, fresh fish, produce, Sicilian products, and tourist souvenirs are sold at the market. We enjoyed scoping out the various street food options we looked forward to tasting while traveling throughout Sicily!
(For all photos, click on the image for a full screen view.)
During our visit, it started to rain hard, leaving us looking like drowned rats by the time we returned to our hotel. Thankfully (gratefully!), that was the last of any significant rain during the entire tour. Although it rained a couple of other times, it never impacted us; we were either indoors or on a bus. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather!
Next up:SICILY & THE AMALFI COAST #2: POKING AROUND PALERMO
Elaine-iaK's Travels: A Traveler's Tales of People, Places, Photos, Pools... and CHOCOLATE! 