Palermo

25 Nov

The weather was pretty miserable, so just stayed on the boat...

26 Nov
The next day we got on the bus and went into town, took in the art Gallery, Pretoria Fountain, church of San Cataldo(built in he 1100's) and St Mary of the Admiral of the Matrona. Some of the paintings gallery are of Scicillian arists...

This is a fresco

 The above, is actually a fresco, but looks more like a sculpture..

Children working he sulphur mines, with no future

They also managed to get a photo of me...

Me contemplating the landscape

 This is a more modern painting which looks like a photograph - we walked up that road, later in the day - the road leads to the Pallazo Reale.

Next off to the St Cataldo  and St Mary.. St Cataldo on the right, S Mary on the left..

St Cataldo was build in the 11th Century and is still in use by the knights of the order of Jerusalem.

St Cataldo

The mosaic work in St Mary is pretty impressive

Next off to Fontana Pretoria..

What the... Captured in a photo, even less soul now... 

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 Next off to see the grand theater and a lunch at a restaurant..

After lunch, went to see the Duomo

Done for the day and back to the boat... 

27 Nov

The next day we went to see the Palanine Chapel and the Palazio Realle. The Palentine chapel is quite impressive and definitely worth vistiing..

Rather unassuming entrance

 The ceiling and vaults are decorated with mosaic work of gold  and other valuable stones. The naves are lined in wood

The naves are lined with exquisite woodwork

 This is the entry to the chapel..

Next was the Palazzo Realle - the current seat of the Sicillian parliment.

Next were the royal apartments - this room is quite impressive, there is no consensus as to it's purpose - it's purpose could be a bedroom for the king, his private thinking room, regardless it is quite impressive.  The ceiling is decorated by mosaic work.

28 November

We provisioned the boat as we were planning on leaving early the next day.. Later in he afternoon, Nino, who has kindly let us stay in his berth (as his boat is on the hard), the same one who drove me around for an hour to get bolts for he keel, showed up. He had made plans for us - he was going to drive us to get a view of the Palermo from Monte Pelegrino, get diesel for us(the diesel pump is closed) and we were going to have dinner with them.

St Mary - Patron saint of Seafarers

 Looking North and West..

 Over the gulf of Palermo.. After seeing this and looking at the forecast, I was pretty confident of us departing the following day..

Gulf of Palermo

 On the way back we stopped off at the chapel of St Rosalia - she lived as hermit in this cave, she is the patron saint of Palermo.

 Entrance to the chappel

 The chapel itself is quite simple, the iron work in the roof is to direct the water..

Saint Rosalie

Iron work in the roof to direct water

St Benedetto

 The location of St Rosalia was revealed to him in a dream - he lived some way away and had a dream that he would find her in the cave and bingo, the rest is history..

For dinner, we had the great company of  Nino, Marrissa, Ania and Alessandro who made us feel like family- it has been a real pleasure to meet such kind helpful people. We also learnt that eating pasta and bread at the same time is verbotten! Scarpetino - something you do at home, in a restaurant, you will be looked down on ;-)..

29 November

We set off a 06h45 with  a forecast calling for winds of 15kts and in the evening up to 30kts till 06h00 the next day..  We were 5 miles ou and the wind was already up to 25, and he boat had been washed twice, with the occasional smack on the hull to keep things real... I decided to bale and we headed back as I was not relishing the prospect of staying awake for 24hours while I was learnt further humility.. So tomorrow we set off again with a much better weather forecast.

Ciao Palermo... Maybe