We had been in Palermo for over two months by the time we finally got around to visiting its Gallery of Modern Art. I don't know what kept us; perhaps the over-abundance of things to do in the city, perhaps a personal aversion to modern art. But upon finally visiting the collection, we were blown away. This was the best museum we visited in Palermo.
Before we moved to Sicily for 91 days, I didn't know that there was actually a town called Corleone. I had assumed that the name was invented by Mario Puzo, who wrote The Godfather. So I felt a thrill upon discovering that the town actually does exist, just an hour from Palermo, and that it indeed has a past strongly identified with the Mafia. It was just a matter of time before we visited. My name is Michael, after all.
Segesta was founded high upon Mount Barbaro by the Elymian people, one of three Bronze Age cultures that flourished in Sicily before the arrival of overseas powers. Eventually, though, the foreigners came knocking and, after a doomed alliance with Carthage, Segesta attached its fortunes to Athens. The Romans and Arabs also took possession of Segesta, but the city was abandoned completely at some point during the Middle Ages. This desertion allowed Segesta's ruins to survive relatively untouched, shielded from the destructive march of history.
There are two types of eccentrics: those you feel sorry for, and those you're secretly envious of. The first kind are poor and fill their house with cats. They have crazy, stringy hair and scream obscenities at malicious neighbor kids. The second kind have the good fortune of being royalty and are able to indulge their every screwy whim. "Bring in that funny peasant boy. Now do your silly dance! I need more cats, a leopard perhaps. And build me a palace... a Chinese palace!" If you're going to be an eccentric, it's a lot better to be the rich kind.
After centuries of foreign occupation, Sicily enthusiastically joined the Kingdom of Italy in 1860. Finally free of the hated Bourbons, Palermo celebrated its allegiance to the new King Vittorio Emanuele by ordering a theater built in his honor. After thirty years of construction, the Teatro Massimo ("Maximum Theater") opened to great fanfare in 1897. It's the largest opera house in Italy, and the third largest in all Europe.
Cefalù numbers just 13,000, but its population balloons in the summer. The town is one of Sicily's finest beach resorts and attracts sunbathers from all over Italy and Europe. From what we've heard, it's unbearable when crowded. And although we found the streets empty in December, the emphasis on tourism was abundantly clear. €3 cappuccinos and stores hawking magnets and postcards to phantoms.
Hidden coves. Crystal clear water. Prehistoric caves. Utter solitude. If all that sounds good after the noise and muck of Palermo, hop in a car and head out to Sicily's first national park: the Riserve Naturale dello Zingaro.
Three red domes immediately call attention to the tiny church of San Cataldo on Piazza Bellini, near the center of Palermo. A pristine example of Arab-Norman architecture, San Cataldo dates from 1160 and has survived into the present-day in a mostly original state.
If you're an adult human living in the 21st century, you have at some point in your life suffered a catastrophic computer crash. You've been faced with the choice of whether to try and recover your system, or just start fresh with a clean install. And you've probably learned that, almost always, the best option is to start clean and reinstall from scratch. Restorations rarely work and, even if you're able to cobble your computer back to a semi-functional state, there are usually problems. No, it's best to bite the bullet, lose some work, and start over. For metaphorical proof from history, just look at the Sicilian city of Noto.
On our second day in Syracuse, we made our way to the Parco Archeologico della Neapolis, where some of Sicily's greatest ruins are bunched together, almost as though our ancient forebears wanted to facilitate future tourist groups.
