Sicily, Part 5

When I started this blog I had no idea how intense blogging each day of a trip would be. Here we are over a month later and I still haven't finished! My bad. I want to write an accurate and thorough account so when I'm old and crusty sitting in an old folks home my magic watch will read me this blog and project holograms of our pictures up on the ceiling to help me remember these days. Plus I know all 10 of you reading this right now really, really want to know!

The morning of our "last day" in Sicily we went to the antiques market. Up until this point we hadn't bought anything but food. Perhaps off season the trinket peddlers just aren't out, but either way, we were ready to drop some loot. The market is a little street just north of the Norman Palace lined with, like the rest of Palermo, garage doors. Behind them everyone has their own little shop. Some were ok but others were just downright nasty. I'm talking leaks in the roof and everything damaged inside.
 
Due to the plane ride back home, we were in the market for smalls. Usually when antiquing I’m looking for large statement pieces and it’s hard to find good stuff. On this island it’s the complete opposite, I’m sure because all the tourists are in the same boat. The shops had hardly anything small enough to fit into a suitcase that was worth buying.

 
It was chandeliers, furniture, and outdoor sculptures galore!

Oh what I would have given to take this home!

The market was a bust. I did find one watercolor from the 1890's of Agrigento but we just weren't sure it was worth the asking price so we passed. I think it was a mass produced tourist item from the era and nothing really special but I guess we'll never know.

We checked out a few of the touristy bric-a-brac shops too but couldn't find anything there either. The pottery was overpriced for what I found in Nove and nothing really special and the rest of it was either creepy marionette dolls or religious themed. Walking away empty handed is one for the record books! But it's ok, I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to buy stuff in Italy.

For lunch we had hands down our best meal in Sicily at Bar Tourismo. This fabulous, swanky bar was suggested to us my Massimo. We did not fit in AT ALL with HB in full lunchtime cobra mode but I so didn’t even care. The food was absolutely amazing.

Zack had a boring sandwich, as standard for Italy, prosciutto and cheese on a baguette 

and I had a meat and mushroom extravaganza. And wine, of course. HB had tortellini but I didn’t take a picture of it.

 What I should have done was taken one of our whole table because we looked like ridiculous fat Americans with all this food on a tiny little table. Italians don’t eat a lot, they mostly just drink coffee and smoke cigarettes so we looked like insane gluttons, I’m sure. But mmmm mmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmm was it good! And for dessert we had these little chocolate truffle pie cake thingies. I don’t even know what they were but they were so good my head almost exploded.

That afternoon we went back to the Norman Palace. It was open HOWEVER what the weekend asshole staff failed to tell us was that since it is still currently used as an assembly hall for parliament, most of it is closed during the week (naturally, why wouldn't it be?). 

 

This fountain behind the palace is complete with slaves in bondage bowing and cowering to the dude on the top. Wish I knew who it was. 

 

We were able to see the Palantine chapel which the photos do absolutely no justice to. The ENTIRE thing is mosaic. Everything. You think it’s painted on but it’s not, it’s teeny tiny tiles of marble and other stone (gold maybe?).  Constructed around 1142 by Byzantine, Islamic and Latin master chiefs, it is considered the highest architectonic sample of encounter among different cultures. Or at least that's what the brochure says. 

 

Templar Cross? Maltese Cross?

Mosaic....

 

The only things that were wood were the doors and ceiling. Look at the carvings and Star of David!

Pieces of this chapel came from destroyed synagogues and mosques. 

After the palace we went to the Franceso Clemente exhibit across the street from out apartment. Bewilderingly we were the only people there are 4:30pm. It would have been nice except the docent was just about the creepiest creeper ever. Zack was following HB around and this guy was following ME around. Every time I took a step HE took a step. Every time I turned HE turned. I couldn’t shake him room to room since it was a pretty small exhibit and we ended up leaving way sooner than I would have liked. That being said, I have a new favorite artist! He is amazing and what is so neat is that he is self taught- so inspirational1q`!. I managed to eek out one photograph of poor quality of a painting that is not even close to my favorite of his.

 

After a quiet dinner of leftover pizza and wine at the apartment I received a text message from the airline stating that due to the air traffic controller strike in Italy, our morning flight was cancelled. The awesome thing about Ryan Air is that in Italy, you can only speak to Italians and if you want to speak to someone English, you have to call England on your own dime. Except my cell phone doesn't have capabilities to call England. So we had to rebook on my smart phone. Which was fine, except Ryan Air charges you 50 Euro if you don't print your own boarding pass. 

The landlord OKed an extra night in the apartment and told us he would help with the boarding pass issue in the morning. And then wine flowed.....