Sicily

A couple of my friends and I had quite an adventure last weekend.  Thursday morning I went to Termini train station to meet a Canadian friend coming in from Austria on the night train.  She has been in Europe for a couple of weeks already, but spent 10 days in Austria and Germany visiting some nurses who had graduated with her 58 years ago.  She didn't expect me to come meet her train (not having informed me when she was coming in--I had to do some detective work to find those details), and so was very happy to see me on her arrival.  On our way out of the station she asked if we should go ahead and buy tickets for the night train that evening for Sicily, but I thought it best to do a little research first, so we arranged to meet later to buy tickets before going to evening Mass.  In the meantime, I researched trains and ferries, and we decided to leave Friday evening (the following day) and return on the night ferry leaving Sunday from Palermo.  So, my dear Ethiopian friend and our Canadian friend hopped on an overnight train on Friday, and slept (between the snores of the Bangladeshi fellow who shared our compartment) until our arrival in Sicily Saturday morning.

View from our hotel room in Palermo

 I booked a hotel room from the train, and we took a cab there when we arrived, and I plied the hotel clerk with questions for about an hour before the three of us set out walking back the direction of the train station.  We decided to take a bus to Agrigento (instead of the train), and searched for food and a taxi on our arrival.  Agrigento is known for its Valley of the Temples, and that was where we were headed.

 It was really rather neat to see the ancient Greek temples along the ridge, overlooking the Mediterranean on one side, and the modern city of Agrigento on the other.  There were especially lots of olive and almond trees in the area.  But among the old stuff there at the among the temples, one also finds quite modern blocks as well.  Pictured below are ancient arcosolia on the right, and a row of modern concrete blocks on the left.  I saw doors in the modern concrete blocks, and went in to see what the labels with the names of various Greek gods referred to in the little buildings.  The picture above shows you what was inside each one.  All contained the same empty blackness.  But at least it was shade.  Each had a different noise playing to represent the various gods, I suppose.  Pretty crazy stuff, if you my opinion of it!

 And then, just when we got to the best-preserved of the temples (one which had been re-consecrated as a Catholic church in the 6th century), we came across another bit of contemporary art--the fallen angel.  Not a thing of great beauty, but a great anachronism that didn't quite fit.

 Thus far for the ruins of Agrigento.  While we were there, we rested at their little bar, sipping almond milk and cold water, taking a respite from the hot sun.  There were stray dogs wandering around, and one reclining in the shade in the garden at the balcony where we relaxed and waited for our taxi back to the bus station to catch the 6:30 bus back to Palermo.

 We asked about Mass schedules, and arranged for our breakfast to be ready for us the next morning after the earliest neighborhood Mass.  St. Francis of Assisi had a 7:30, and was only about 3 or 4 blocks from the hotel, so we went there.  They turned on lights for Mass, but made it a bit dark again after, and I thought I'd be able to resist taking pictures in the beautifully decorated Franciscan church, but was unable to resist a picture of St. George above.  The Mass was in Italian, not very crowded, and had one lone cantor hidden tastefully behind a pillar.  Unfortunately, at Communion time, he sang an Italian equivalent (complete with familiar tune) of Kum-ba-ya!

Just outside the church, in the piazza, was this false front on a building.  I enjoyed the facade so much, i had to take the picture!  False windows! False doors! False man coming out the door!  False fountain over real stone basin!  I couldn't resist.
 

This fountain above, though, was real enough, located in a piazza across the street from our hotel.

Floor at Monreale

 After breakfast Sunday morning, we headed to Monreale, to visit the Duomo there. We weren't there at the proper visiting times, but slipped in during the Gospel for their regular Sunday Mass.  I spotted a line for confessions across the way, and joined those penitents, not noticing how slowly they were moving.  It took almost the rest of Mass to get me to the priest, but as I waited, I examined my conscience pretty carefully, and took a couple surreptitious pictures of the floor, the ceiling, and the apse.

Ceiling

Apse

Then the church closed definitively for their midday pause, and we went across the piazza for pizza.  I then took the above photo of the front of the church.

St. Dominic's

  We had a ferry to catch, so we couldn't stick around and go up the towers for good views of the sea and surroundings.  So, we took the bus back to town, with a slight detour to see St. Dominic's basilica before gathering our luggage from the hotel and heading for the port.

 Finding the port and the ferry turned out to be quite an adventure as well.  It involved walking longer than we expected to walk, and when we walked into the port's entrance, there was a thud behind which distracted all the official-looking personnel in the area for a couple of minutes.  It sounded to me like an automobile accident at the intersection marking the entrance.  While I don't know what actually happened, I did finally get directions to the ferry company's office in order to check in.  My online ticket had not provided any address or information for locating the port in Palermo, and when I looked the company up online, I could only glean their headquarters' address in Genoa, which was not at all helpful.  When I did near the port, I looked for company names, and destination names, but Civitavecchia was not among them.  When directed to the offices there, the company was correct, but our destination was again not listed.  I can only infer that it is a newly offered destination (from who knows how many years back) that they haven't yet gotten around to slapping on all their signs. 

Anyway, we found the office, checked in, and even managed to find the ferry and the entrance, though that was another adventure in itself.  Once inside, we followed people until we found someone we could ask where to find the room with the regular seats, since we had not booked a cabin (there being none left when I bought the tickets online days prior).  And when we found the room, it was another adventure finding chairs with seats on them.  For, there were many sleepy looking Arabs curled up on seat cushions pushed together as makeshift mattresses on the floor scattered around the hall.  We had to seek assistance from the porter to find 3 intact seats near each other, and he did this by kicking people awake (fairly gently), and taking all but one cushion from them so he could put them back in seats.  Meanwhile, others were looking for seats and complaining about the filth round about.  Numbers were obliterated on the seats, junk all over the floor, dust and food wrappers and empty drink containers everywhere, not to mentioned spilled foodstuffs and other litter.  So, just when the boat was supposed to depart, we were all ordered out so they could come and clean again.  And after a few minutes, the team of five or six maintenance men came out with huge bags of garbage and told us to wait for the floor to dry before re-entering.  When we did, though, it was much cleaner, and much easier to find seats!

Then the boat finally began to move, and we went for a walk, exploring the big ferry.  We found our wake, the gorgeous sunset, a helipad, an empty swimming pool with a net strung across it, a bar, a restaurant, a shopping mall, a children's playroom, a kennel, and a lovely salt breeze.  Then it was time to go back in and try to get some sleep.  But the tv was on in front of us, with volume.  I put my hat on over my eyes, and tried not to hear anything.  But there was a nervous, almost delirious sort of laughter every time I almost got to sleep.  And the lights stayed on.  And there must have been about 100 of us in that room.  And my seat hardly reclined.  Anyway, who I am to really complain?  I was on the ferry from Sicily to Rome!  It was quite an adventure, even if sleep wasn't to be a good part of it.  We docked a couple of hours later than expected, and visited friends with their first newborn on the way back to town.  Then I cleaned myself up and made myself feel semi-human again, went to Mass and Chinese supper to celebrate with the same friends who'd accompanied me to Sicily, came back and collapsed for the next day.
It's good to be back in Rome!