A few years ago we were in Sicily for the second time in a year to visit Villa Palagonia. Sicily is one of those fascinating places in the world, it's Italy but so out of character with Italy. It's amazing that such a small island would hold so many things that one can travel extensively here and still find places that sets itself apart. Villa Palagonia is one of these places. It's high in a chart of quirky places. In and of itself it is just a baroque mansion but the "Prince' who owned it years ago built a wall fence and on top placed all kinds of stone carvings of animals and people. The original wall was filled but with years of decay many of these stone carvings have fallen off. But what is left is still mesmerizing.
The double staircase is very typical of baroque buildings.
This was the main entrance. It is now a museum, the current owners allowed the property to be shown to the public. Unlike a lot of other baroque mansions which are clossed to the public. There are a lot of baroque mansions and palaces in Sicily but they are all closed to the the public. When I read that this is opened to the public, I had to make a second trip back to Sicily.
The ground floor is opened through and through, one can drive right through the house, the kitchen is here and makes for easy unloading of groceries. Nobody lives here anymore, just a few caretakers in the the out buildings.
Imagine parties here in the ballroom. I'd love to own this place, I'll live in it.
The town of Bagheria is just against its walls and is all built up that it's hard to access the stone figures for repair. So we see the empty spaces on top of this section of the wall. It used to be covered with stone figures. Bagheria is just a 20 minute train ride from Palermo and a 30 minute walk from the train station. It is one of my mostg favorite of places to visit.
No comments:
Post a Comment