October 2, 2005 - Palermo

We woke at 7A and ate breakfast and showered and planned our day.

We had planned to take a bus tour to Erice, Trapani and Segesta, but we're just tired of sitting in buses and cars so we canceled. Instead, we took a cab over to the Palazzo Abbezia in the Kalsa, or old Arabic, area. This houses the Regional Art Gallery of Sicily, which has a wonderful collection of medieval, gothic and late gothic Sicilian art.

A famous marble bust of Eleanor of Aragon	A painting of a nun - I really liked this one
Part of the ceiling of the first room	Painted wood from a church in Palermo
One of the most unusual Pietas I've ever seen	Paintings of two people
Triumph of Death, a fresco from someplace in Palermo	A detail from the fresco

One of my favorites - Annunziata by Antonello de Messina

We grabbed lunch as a trattoria in the neighborhood, and then walked to a few of the churchs in the Kalsa.

Chiesa di Santa Maria della Catena	Chiesa di Santa Teresa della Kalsa
Chiesa di San Domenico	Chiesa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo
Chiesa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo	Chiesa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo
A figure of Christ in a glass case	A parade object sitting in a parking lot

Chiesa di Santa Maria dello Spasimo is special because its both a very old church and also misses its roof - it was destroyed during World War II and never replaced. We listened briefly to a performance of motorcycles - I'm serious, someone was conducting motorcycle sounds.

All over the city were images by David LeChapelle, a famous photographer. However, I wonder how popular these are as the neighborhoods are very poor.

A number of David LeChapelle's images are hanging outside in Palermo

We also saw some dogs:

• Strays that we felt very sorry about, including one that kept trying to get to the kitchen of the trattoria we ate lunch at (the owner put a bowl of milk out for the dog, but he was a very determined dog and kept trying to get to the meat)
• A man out with his three dogs, two poodles and a terrier
• A large black dog looking at us out his window

Various dogs we saw in Palermo today

We then walked to the main square and waited for a city sightseeing bus. They were, of course, very late, so we decided to ditch that, window shopped a bit (everything is closed on Sunday here), and went back to the hotel for a light meal and sleep.

Send email to Bob at electricbob@alephnaught.com
Send email to Aviva at avivakramer@earthlink.net

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