The ugly

a Palermo neighborhood, near Via Maqueda

a Palermo neighborhood

the Ballaro market in Palermo, Sicily

the Ballaro market

side streets leading to the Ballaro market

the Ballaro market

the Chiesa del Carmine, next to the Ballaro market. This gorgeous gem was the reason why we ventured into the Ballaro market, it's a place that one should not miss. This church is not mentioned in the major and leading guide books.

Not everything is pretty abroad. I remember an incident in the Soho district in London some years ago. This is the Chinatown area. It was my first trip to London and I was to meet up with my English cousins for dim sum in Chinatown. My aunt with whom I was staying took me there. We had time yet before the meeting, so we decided to get some groceries. She said, let's look at the fish' and started to walk down some alley and I followed but not for long. It was wet and absolutely filthy, I ran out from there, yelled to her,'I'll pass, I'll wait for you here!'. OMG, I couldn't stomach the filth. She decided, too, she couldn't either and left. Phew!

Last year, we (with Sophie) met up with a similar situation in Palermo, Sicily. This time we pressed on because at the end of this dirty alley was the most dome of an old church, Chiesa del Carmine. It had brightly colored mosaics and is the most beautiful baroque dome. The church is right next to the Ballaro market in Palermo and is the most dilapidated of any Palermitano neighborhood. To get to the church, we had to walk through alleys littered with trash, dog poop, smell of urine till we get to the Ballaro market which itself is no better. It smelt of dead fish and rotting vegetables. Phew! I love Palermo, and scattered among these desperate neighborhoods are the most gorgeous churches which are so well worth seeing. I remember an earlier trip when we went to see 'casa professa', a Jesuit church, we had to make our way through similar neighborhoods, I was praying the whole time that we'll come out of there alive. It was well worth the effort. Some of the neighborhoods in Palermo are very scary, they look dilapidated and intimidating and not having a guide or a local with us makes it a little uncomfortable. Well, that's the way I like to travel, I'm going to see the world on my own. Maybe the people are nice but we didn't have time to find out. These are very mixed neighborhoods with a lot of dark skin North Africans. We saw a big Tamil population because every afternoon the children would assemble in a shop and you can hear recitation and songs in Tamil. Here is one community trying to keep alive their heritage in a foreign land.

I love Sicily because it is not touristy, not yet!

Quirky places, Villa Palagonia

From this, it looked like a regular pallazzo, regular, it is not. This place is quirky if not the quirkiest place in the world. The quirkiest I've been to anyway. It was built some 400 years ago by a mad Sicilian prince. He was as quirky as the villa itself. There are accounts of him in popular literature. Goethe, in his 'Grand Tour' has visited and written about Villa Palagonia and has met the prince, who happened to be in the same shop in town. The prince, being spurned by his wife, began to pour all his money into making this place it is today. He had ugly figures made to be placed on the walls surrounding the property. He was known to go around town, forcing people to donate to his charities, his money went into this house.
Today, this house belongs to a Sicilian family who has allowed the place to be opened to the public. It is situated in Bagheria, a small town near Palermo, it is a 20 minute train ride away but a 20 minute walk from the train station. After I realized I had missed seeing it on my first trip to Sicily, I made sure I didn't miss it on my second trip. We ended up in the back entrance of the property which was locked and my heart sank so low. I thought after all this to get here I would have to miss it again..... I'd kill myself. So I said to Sophie, lets just walk round the property, even is we were to miss seeing the inside, we would have at least seen the figures from the outside. The sad part is, the town of Bagheria has grown so much, it now butts against the walls of Villa Palagonia. I don't understand what the you tube video is saying but I can guess they are saying restoration is impossible. There used to be a lot more figures on those walls but there are only some left. I feel, if anyone has any inclination to see this property, one should make the effort now.
I learned a new word yesterday after viewing Matt Gross, the frugal traveler on the New York Times series, 'the Grand tour' which is 'bo-bo' which means bourgeois-bohemian. That's the exact attitude of Villa Palagonia, it is bourgeois-bohemian! I love this attitude. I love this place.

The main entrance, guarded by some weird figures.

One can drive right through the house from front to back. I love the double staircases of baroque buildings.

I wish I can say, come to my villa....

The staircase from an upstairs window.

Another one of them.....this one has seen a lot over the last few hundred years, if only he can talk, he'll fill up volumes. His blog would be so huge.......

These old figures are barely hanging on, they used to fill up every space on top of the wall. This is really only a house and yard but the figures has given this house the notoriety it has enjoyed the last few hundred years.

A close up look of the figures show them smirking. The prince was very upset about his wife's indiscretions.

Read November to December 2007 postings in this blog for more on Villa Palagonia. I was there in October 2007.

Next trip - more memories

The very grand and baroque, Pallazo Biscari, that I didn't get to see the interior. It is now converted into a hotel. Other Pallazos remain in private hands and one can only view them from books. There are still reasons to return to Sicily, if only just to see the grand interior of Pallazo Biscari.

Compare with this crumbling Pallazo which was our base while visiting Catania. This ruin is now a hostel, run by a Dutchman and his Sicilian family. It's dirt cheap and always full of young Europeans. I love this place, I've stayed here during both trips to Sicily. (Search this blog for detailed accounts of my 2 trips to Sicily).

Lots of beautiful mosaics in churches, some of the oldest in Europe, Sicily was part of the Byzantine Empire and an important part, wars were fought over it throughout it's 2600 years of recorded history. Some of the most beautiful and extensive mosaics can be found in Monreale, just outside of Palermo, in the Palatine chapel in Palermo, in the duomo in Cefalu and many others, too numerous to mention.

The fabled, Vucciria market in Palermo. Artists like Renato Guttuso has painted it, many travel writers has written about it, it hasn't changed in hundreds of years, 'the red plastic covering over the market, the naked light bulb, illuminating the whole place, the sale of huge chunks of tuna caught off the coasts of the island, besides poultry, beef and pork, the sale of dead rabbits etc...Fish mongers singing about how fresh their stuff is to entice housewives to buy from them.

I'm among them, buying some Alpine strawberries for 2 euros. I remember this so clearly. It was consumed within minutes.

The quatro canti or four corners, in Palermo, a very beautiful and again baroque area, lots of beautiful churches are found within yards of each other. Palermo is actually pretty compact. It was raining the whole time during both trips to Sicily, in March and in October, but it didn't dampen our will or our spirit, we forged on and had a great time.

The Oratory of Santa Zita, a small chapel, richly decorated by the famed Palermitano and Sculptor, Giacomo Serpotta, whose prolific works can be seen all over Sicilian but principally in Palermo. One can spend whole days just going around examining his work, there is a 'Serpotta' itinerary that takes you to see all his work. He has a way with putty, he can make it look like marble, but marble it is not. His whimsical christian caricature decorates the four walls of this chapel and it is the most delightful thing to behold.

Noto, another absolutely baroque city, 'whose baroque out-baroque all baroque' Frances Mayes wrote this about Noto. It is true, it is so pretty.

View of Ragusa Ibla, we had to navigate a little lane to get down to it and get lost in its windy and narrow streets, an absolutely delightful experience.

Noto, with its Unesco World Heritage site designation.

March in Sicily is wet and rainy. While along the coasts, the palm trees sway and the bougainvillea are in bloom, up in the mountains, they can hardly be called mountains, more like hills, up where Mt Etna is, there is snow and skiing. There are villages and farmlands all around the foot of Mt Etna, which has spewed its lava very often over the centuries. There are lots of evidence still littering the area around it. These are lava rock from the lava flow which was at the time of this picture covered in snow, a very unusual sight. We took the little train, the Circumetna, around the foothill of Mt Etna.

The wet streets of Taormina, an extremely pretty resort town. It was here I had sea urchins with my pasta. I'd love to return and eat it again.

Here am I fighting with the wind in Cefalu, I lost 2 umbrellas due to the fierce winds.

The lush hill top in Taormina, right next to the ruins, this view is towards the sea. On clear days, one can see Mt Etna from Taormina but not on the day we were there.

'Dionysius ear' in Siracusa. Another ultra friendly town, where are the fierce mafia?

The valley of the temples in Agrigento, the biggest Greek ruin outside of Greece. The ancient Greeks were among the first to conquer Sicily, resulting in a series of other conquerors, the ancient Romans, the Saracens, the Normans, the Spanish and the list goes on, each leaving their mark on the island and makes what Sicily is today, a land of contrasts, a land of enigma, one can forget that it is just a tiny island.

Valley of the temples, Agrigento, Sicily. It stretched for miles and miles and is so beautiful.

Agrigento

Sicily, my beloved Sicily. There are many more that delight the senses here on this tiny island. Forget about other islands, forget about Hawaii, Tahiti, Fuji and everywhere else. One can spend a lifetime on Sicily and not uncover everything. The food is so incredible and the people so friendly. We got into strangers' cars a couple of times.

While traveling to Italy this March with my 2 teenage nieces, I warned them about getting into cars with strangers. When I recounted the 2 incidents where Sophie and I got into cars with strangers, Ashley, being so observant said, 'you got into strangers' cars?' The first time was at the train station in Caltagirone, we were hustled by some old Sicilian when we asked how to get to the historic area of town. He was hustling for a fare, we refused him, saying we will walk. We hadn't gotten very far when he came after us and gave us a lift which we accepted. There were 2 of us and we were adults, what could happen? The second time was in Erice, a few days later. It was raining so hard and we couldn't see our way back to the bus stop. We asked everyone but was ignored, they were trying to get out of the rain too. Then this nice Sicilian tried to explain to us where it was but he didn't speak English, he motioned us to get into his brand new BMW and drove us to the bus stop. We were soaked to the bone and must have made a big puddle in his car.

Why Sicily? Who goes to Sicily? It was a previous trip to Southern Italy where we discovered Baroque. It was a chance visit to the little baroque city of Lecce that I fell in love with baroque and was on a quest for more. I read that there is an abundance of baroque in Sicily and that Sicilian Baroque was in a class of its own. I wasn't disappointed, not at all. Sicily is not all about the baroque, there's so much more.

When I think back on my peregrinations, it is not Paris or Rome that I remember most, it is Sicily. It is Sicily that thrilled and enthralled me the most.