{"id":1021,"date":"2017-01-12T08:41:45","date_gmt":"2017-01-12T12:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=1021"},"modified":"2017-01-12T08:41:45","modified_gmt":"2017-01-12T12:41:45","slug":"sicily-day-7-november-23-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=1021","title":{"rendered":"Sicily, Day 7 – November 23, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

We learned that in addition to our tour director, Susanna, we would have a local guide in\u00a0many of the towns we were to visit. Today’s guide was Jackie Alio, a Sicilian who lived in California for years and writes books about Sicily.\"\"<\/a> With Jackie, we walked through the old Jewish neighborhood of the city. There the street signs are in \u00a0Italian, Hebrew and Arabic.\"\"<\/a> Today\u00a0this area houses\u00a0cookware shops, both \u00a0retail and commercial, where we saw enormous pots and pans.\u00a0Soon we reached the Mercato di Capo<\/em>. Sicilians\u00a0wouldn’t think of cooking \u00a0or eating food that wasn’t 100% fresh. That means they go to the market every day. \"\"<\/a>The market twists\u00a0and turns through\u00a0\u00a0many city blocks, and there are lots of\u00a0stands, each selling \u00a0fruit, veggies, meat, cheese, fish, or\u00a0eggs,\u00a0their merits being hawked in loud voices. The fact that this was not tourist season didn’t impact the market, because it was packed with locals. \u00a0Nick and I \u00a0ate \u00a0lemon\u00a0ice in remembrance of \u00a0my grandparents’ Corona neighborhood in Queens.<\/p>\n

I asked Jackie if she was familiar with nucatoli cookies. She replied that \u00a0although she was not familiar with the word nucatoli, Palermo\u00a0definitely had\u00a0fig filled cookies. I would continue to\u00a0search for them.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We visited the Church of the\u00a0Ges\u00f9, built by the Jesuits in 1549 and redone in the 1720s in\u00a0Sicilian baroque style. Every square inch is decorated with marble bas-reliefs of angels, cherubs, and flourishes.<\/p>\n

Next on the agenda was a bus trip to\u00a0the Cathedral of Monreale,<\/em> which is among the most impressive creations of the Italian Middle Ages.\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Built in 1184, the cathedral is filled with extremely impressive mosaics that told\u00a0Bible stories to an illiterate population. \u00a0We had been there eleven years ago with my cousin Giuseppe,\u00a0and we were looking forward to the\u00a0return trip.\u00a0\u00a0As we were preparing to board the bus, Giuseppe phoned to find out how I was feeling!<\/p>\n

We weren’t disappointed. \"\"<\/a>Our guide described each story from the Old and New Testaments and gave us time to explore on our own. She told us that Monreale\u00a0contains 33% more mosaics than St. Mark’s in Venice.\u00a0Next to the cathedral are the Cloisters, in which\u00a0arches support columns that are decorated with mosaic patterns. \u00a0Monreale is not to be missed.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For lunch, Nick and I ordered pizza, “uno per due.” Our pizza was topped with artichokes, spinach, “regular” mozzarella and buffalo mozzarella,\u00a0tomatoes, and pancetta. A few of the shops were open. At one of them, we purchased a ceramic Trinacria, the symbol of Sicily.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Our next destination was the Museo\u00a0Archaeologico Regionale<\/em>.\u00a0 Yes, we had been there earlier in the week, but different tour guides \u00a0explain different elements. Jackie traced the history of Sicily from the Phoenicians, to the Greeks, to the Romans. We learned that Sicily has a similar problem to one\u00a0they have in Rome. Both cities want \u00a0to construct subways to help ease the traffic problems. \u00a0However, every time they start digging, artifacts from\u00a0ancient civilizations are discovered, and all excavation must stop.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Then we went to La Martorana<\/em>, another Baroque church famous for its mosaics. Several of the mosaics have been removed through the years, but some masterpieces remain.<\/p>\n

Back at the hotel, it was time to pack, because we would be leaving Palermo in the morning.\u00a0At dinner time, we walked into a restaurant near our hotel to find that two of our fellow tourists, KB and SweeMee, were dining alone. They invited us to join them, which, of course, we did. They are a delightful couple from Indonesia who now live in Canada. Nick ordered pasta with squid ink, one of his favorites, and it was more risotto with seafood for me. For dessert Nick ordered \u00a0a slice of seven layer chocolate cake. It was truly amazing. Sure, it tasted good, but each of the seven layers was about 1\/4\u00a0of an inch high, so\u00a0the entire slice was less than two inches in height.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

We walked 11, 553 steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We learned that in addition to our tour director, Susanna, we would have a local guide in\u00a0many of the towns we were to visit. Today’s guide was Jackie Alio, a Sicilian who lived in California for years and writes books about Sicily. With Jackie, we walked through the old Jewish neighborhood of the city. There … Continue reading Sicily, Day 7 – November 23, 2016<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sicily-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1034,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/1034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}