Our day began with another pleasant breakfast at the hotel. I discovered that they had a decent wifi signal out here. While you may bemoan Americans bringing laptops to breakfast, all the Italians present were obsessively playing with their iPhones.
And I had a reason to be online. Our goal for the day was to reach the town of Cefalu and I had to figure out the TrenItalia schedules and how to make it to Palermo Centrale station. Google maps gave me pretty decent directions and we made it with time to spare to catch the 11:05 train. In the past, I have been spoiled by my TrenItalia experiences taking the high speed frecciarossa trains to Lecce and Milan last summer. This was my first experience with second class on a regional train. It was not as bad as I expected, and for 5€ a ticket it was also quite a bargain!
A little history here. Cefalù comes from the Greek word for headland. The town is indeed located at the base of a huge headland, and no doubt that is what attracted not only the Greeks but the Normans many centuries later. Wherever the Normans went, it seems like the second thing they built after a fortress was a church. The Cathedral here in Cefalù is all that remains of the Norman era.
As Norman architecture goes, it is not one of the more impressive efforts, at least inside. The mosaic work was never finished and the rest of the decoration is a hodgepodge of Gothic, Baroque, and modern.
Sometime in the nineteenth centuries the Italians became obsessed with these enormous silver altars. We have seen several examples. They all look like some ecclesiastical version of the America’s cup. Whores, politicians, and ugly buildings may all become respectable with age, as John Huston’s character said in Chinatown, but Victorian silver will always be ugly.
We did not spend much time at the church, but like modern Italians we went to see Cefalù’s real attraction, the beach! You can catch glimpses of it as you reach the center.
John was feeling a little dehydrated so we went into a restaurant for a couple bottles of acqua minerale and a quick bite. John jumped in the water while I watched the other patrons. We had two young Spaniards here who could have won the Olympic gold medal for pouting. There was a whole lot of lisping going on as these two argued!
But on to more pleasant topic. The Cefalù beach is justly famous for clear water, lovely sand, and picturesque buildings.
But we had another stop in mind so we did not linger long. We took the train back to Palermo after a short wait at the station. Even without Il Duce, Italian trains run pretty much on time. If only Amtrak were so good!
Our final destination of the afternoon was the Palazzo Mirto. As some of you know, John adores Visconti’s The Leopard, at least in its correctly edited version.
The Leopard is the story of the Prince of Salina, a Sicilian aristocrat, who must adapt to the loss of his status when the southern Kingdom of Naples was forcibly incorporated into the northern Kingdom of Italy. Palazzo Mirto recalls that era. It was the home of the Prince of Mirta and his family. Here is a picture of the last prince
and of his wife.
When the princess died around 1980 she gave the house to the government as a museum. It has been preserved more or less exactly as it was the day she passed away. The place is simply enormous and loaded with all kinds of porcelains and paintings. There was one copy of an English guide that I read as I walked through.
We both loved the Chinese Room.
And if the footboard weren’t a problem, I am sure that this is exactly the bed John would want at home.
We were both taken with the interior courtyard. The fountain is made of marble adorned all kinds of shells. The frescoes on the wall have faded to perfection.
One of the plot points in The Leopard is whether the Prince and his family will be allowed to keep a chapel at his home or whether he must attend Mass with the hoi poloi. Apparently the Prince of Mirta lost this battle and the family chapel had been converted into a puppet theater.
As we left, we visited the old stables where John struck a D. H. Lawrence inspired pose.
This evening I’m working on getting caught up with the blog. John went out to pick up a couple sandwiches and managed to get completely lost. Fortunately, he’s back and it’s time for all of us to go to bed. We need to be alert tomorrow. We pick up the car and start driving around Sicily.
