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Sicily

After the term was over at GTL in the fall of 2004, we headed down to Sicily for 5 dyas before returning to America. The first three days were in Palmermo and then we drove around the Western part of the island for the final two days. First stop was a museum in the Kalsa district. Here is a nice picture of the archer named Death:

and a cool decapitating ceiling
One of the nice theaters in town:
We took the bus for about 400m, stopped, and then just sat there for about 3-4 minutes. We decided to talk. That was a good choice, as it was a bus parking lot for as far as the eye could see in both directions.

The main archeological museum has some nice artifacts and skulls hiding in the fountains.

I especially liked the carving of the first backflippers and the mean snakes.

Here is a fine church just down the street from our hotel:
The Fountain of Shame, so named for the numerous nudes.
Along the via Vittorio Emmanuel: The "New" Gate in Palermo.
The main cathedral in town.
The capella in the palace.
But, the best Norman cathedral in the world is out bus line 389 about 8km in Monreal. It has an amazing interior filled with mosaics. The series showing Noah's arc and the flood is quite detailed and expansive.


The attached cloisters have a lot of interesting columns.

Heading out of town, our first stop was Segesta - a nice site with a Greek temple and theater.


Next stop was at the far Northwest corner of the island and on top of a mountain in the medieval town of Erice.

We found a nice little chapel, but upon closer examinination, we found it was the devil's address.


A view from Erice down to the port town of Tranpani.

There is a nice ruined castle on the Eastern edge of town.


After several navigational challenges we made to Sciacca and stayed for the night.

The next day we continued on to the Valley of the Temples near Agrigento. It is the finest set of Greek ruins aside from Athens.


The weather was sunny most of the time, but we had a wonderful display of rainbows.