3/14/18: Today we visited another ancient site, Selinunte, the rival city of Segesta. It seems these people had enormous wealth, as there are at least three extramural temples and several inside the city acropolis as well. The city itself is sprawling and has an extensive wall and military fort for protection. One of my favorite landmarks at this site is Temple G (or whatever remains of it). One of the largest temples in the ancient world, it is now a pile of rubble thanks to time and natural disasters. Several of the columns still partially stand, and their enormous size helps give a visual of how massive this temple would have been. We were given some time to scramble around on the rocks, too, which was a very cool experience. It’s rare to find an ancient site that is so interactive.
Segesta
3/13/18: On Tuesday, we left Palermo and visited the ancient site of Segesta. Segesta was inhabited by the Elymians, a group of people whose background is very uncertain. We do know, however, that they were not Greek, and that they were allied with the Athenians and factored heavily in the Athenian expedition to Sicily. According to Thucydides, the Segestans needed help in their skirmishes against the people of Selinunte. They fooled the Athenians into thinking they actually had wealth, and the temple (pictured below) might be an example of that. This temple was begun in the 420s BCE, just years before the Athenians would have come to Segesta to see if they had enough money to support their expedition. It was unfinished, too, suggesting that the Segestans’ wealth wasn’t actually great.
After Segesta, we ventured to Mt. Erice for the night. The drive up the cliff of the mountain was both beautiful and terrifying—it felt like we might flip over at every curve. Once we approached the small town at the top, however, we were covered in fog and couldn’t see a thing. It felt like exploring a ghost town.
Cappella Palatina
3/12/18: On our second full day in Palermo, we visited the Cappella Palatina, a church used by the Norman kings and their close family/friends. Because it served such an elite audience, the church was decorated from floor to ceiling with gilded mosaics and colored marble. The inside walls of the nave depicted the cycle of stories from the Old Testament, starting with the creation of the universe and ending with Jacob. Below is one section showing the tale of Noah’s drunkenness (also slightly above this scene, the creation of the heavens and animals). In addition to the many clear Christian elements, the church also displaces Islamic influence, such as the muqarnas decorating the wooden ceiling. Like Sicily, the Cappella Palatina is truly a mix of different cultures.
Palazzo Steri
3/11/18: Today we visited Palazzo Steri, a castle that was turned into a prison during the Spanish Inquisition. A lot of architectural details and decoration still remain in the space today. Most notable of these are the jail cell wall paintings done by the prisoners themselves. Because they were not given paint, the prisoners had to be very creative—they scraped red pigment off the floor and mixed it with bodily fluids to create paint. The resulting paintings are very impressive. One wall featured a prayer in Latin, Italian, and English, as well as a monster eating various Biblical figures (shown below). Others included ships, maps of Sicily, and other religious imagery.
Mount Etna, Aci-Trezza, and Catania
3/18/18
Today, we left Siracusa, and ventured out to Mount Etna, Aci Trezza, and the center of Catania. Mount Etna was certainly an experience… The temperature fell below 35 degrees Fahrenheit, much colder than the rest of the places we stayed in, and VERY windy. It was a very striking landscape, but I thought I might blow away. After Etna, we drove to Aci Trezza, a coastal part of Catania, where we overlooked a chain of large boulders in the water, pictured in this post. Classicists associate these rocks with the Odyssey, and the cyclops that Odysseus and his men trick. Then, we drove to our hotel in Catania — the Domus hotel, ate some really tasty street food, and then walked around a bit to the main piazzas and notable statues in the central area. For the rest of the day, we were left to explore on our own. We ended the day with a group dinner — the “Last Supper”, in which I ate a plate of pasta alle vongole, calamari fritti, and tiramisù. Certainly a happy note to end our trip on.
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