Sicily: the short version

Well, the Sicily trip was certainly a trip. If that was class at all, it was tourism 101. We are classics majors: we brake for “archaeological site” signs. Our bus left early Friday morning, down the western coast of Italy. Our first stop was Velia, which had an impressive excavation going on and an impressive view, but we students, who are actually monkeys disguised as students, were also quite excited by the middle-ages ruins of a castle, which none of us were supposed to climb, but some of us did.

in a skirt, no less

That night we arrived in Paestum, which we toured the next morning for its amazingly well preserved temples. In ancient times, Paestum was well known for its roses, but nowadays it is all about the ruins.

artistic

Not only three big still-standing temples, which dominate the landscape, but also both Roman and Greek (since Greeks occupied the site first) structures like forum, bouleterion, and houses.

Vandy all the way

Our next town was Reggio, near the toe of Italy, after which we got on a ferry to the island of Sicily! Our first stop in Sicily was the hilltop Taormina, which also has an old Greek theatre converted into a Roman one. I saw a middle aged Japanese woman there with purple hair, but her tour group left before I could ask her to pose with me for a photo. Once again, fabulous views. The Greeks really like to have their theatres with views behind.

Me behind the theatre.. toldja so.

Our next day was in Siracuse, where we visited Ortigia and the spring of Arethusa. I was especially excited for this because Ovid tells about the spring’s beginning. We also saw a temple of Athena-now Catholic church, which was really cool. Gotta love the conversion and preservation of sacred spaces. There was also a ruined temple to Apollo nearby. I got some of my best postcards in front of that, one of which had been (unbeknownst to me) struck with bird crap on the back of it. Wonder which lucky person will receive that one?

I forgot my camera on the bus when we went to the archaeological park, but it was cool too, complete with a huge Greek theatre, amphitheatre, and quarries. We also got to explore an ancient defensive castle. All these were built by Greek tyrants before Romans ruled the island.

That night we had the best dinner of the whole trip, even though the hotel where we stayed had weak plumbing at best (if you were patient, the shower trickle really would return.. you just had to stand there and wait for it), and the next morning visited the site of Morgantina, where apparently my art history professor from Vandy had done some excavating! Then we got to see some awesome mosaics in a very rich someone’s house. But unlike a lot of places that wanted to exert their Greekness, this person used a lot of African themes, reminding us how close Sicily really is to North Africa!

mosaic madness

We arrived that night at Agrigento and had some time to relax at the beach, which was lovely. It was chilly, so I took a walk with two other Emilys and then we read Harry Potter aloud. The hotel in Agrigento was not only clean, beautiful, and in perfect working order (not only a working shower, but even a shower curtain present), but they even had a lovely garden and good food.

The sites of Agrigento were no less impressive. There is a ridge with temples running all along it which is one of the first things we saw on our bus approach the evening before. And again, there were amazing views! We saw four temples in Agrigento and then moved into the museum where I saw yet another artistic incarnation of my favorite Latin fable: Cupid and Psyche!

so cute! I’ll tell you all about the story of why I love this so much when I show the other thousand pictures I’ve collected of them

Our next stop was Selinunte, which was a big deal for me because I was to give a report there with my partner Brooke on an enormous ruined temple there, “Temple G” which is comparable to a big temple at Agrigento. Everyone loved our temple because, as I mentioned, we’re actually monkeys, and since the gigantic structure was ruined by an earthquake in the middle ages, it isn’t even roped off, so we get to climb all over it.

monkeys

All in all, it was a long day but a lot of fun. Notice the size of the column capital that I’m using as a bench. Temple G was quite large, in addition to being unfinished.

that used to be at the top of a column

The next day (Thursday? I lost track) we went to the Cusa limestone quarries whence came the rock to build the Selinunte temples, in which there are still column drums destined for Temple G (this is part of how we know it was unfinished).

We went into two more museums to see some more bronzes that had been pulled out of the sea (maybe thrown overboard to save from pirates? Arr..) and then we got on an even smaller ferry for Motya, a little island off the west coast of Sicily. I am of the opinion that the water was shallow enough for us to have waded the distance but that might have taken too long.

On Motya there are ancient Phonecian things, so not really any Roman remains, and not really so much of the Greek, either. It was a really cool place where we also found the cutest “centro dog” yet. There seemed to be dogs at every site which would follow us around until we bored them.

this one was actually still a puppy and therefore adorable

The museum contained some really cool markers of graves, too.

we discussed the possibility of baby sacrifice

Next stop was one of my favorites, Segesta. The temple still standing there was supposedly built by people native to Sicily, perhaps an attempt to impress the Greeks. It has stunning views and was either never finished or was a fake temple (no inner room, no roof, etc.) but I liked it best! There was also a Greek theatre on another hillside, complete with awesome view, again.

Best temple ever!

Theatre + view

Friday we went to a lovely church in a place called Monreale, near Palermo. A wedding occurred while we were touring the mosaic-encrusted church but they didn’t seem to mind us as long as we stayed out of their way, and it was very lovely. There was also a cloister attached to the church, with really cool combinations of styles.

cloister!

We spent the rest of the day exploring Palermo and going to its museum, which was hard to find only because the people living there seemed to believe it did not exist. Palermo, like a lot of bigger cities, is both very cool and kind of dirty.

Palermo church coolness

That night we got on the biggest ferry of all which would take us to Naples overnight. I had previously made jokes about our ferry boats being cruise ships, but this one came rather close, and I was so excited. No karaoke or discoteca, unfortunately, but we did have a good time sitting in the lounge and I could have spent the entire night leaning out at the railing. Too bad it was dark the whole time, I bet the water was gorgeous!

you could see the ocean behind me if there were any light at all

The overall experience of the trip was intense awesomeness and also intense closeness with all the Centristi. Living out of a suitcase is always fun, and the bus rides were sometimes awe-inspiring, sometimes uncomfortable. I really enjoyed it and managed to buy postcards here and there as we moved across the island. There will be a whole program dedicated to just Sicily and now I can see why. Each of the sites we visited could have taken a week (like we are doing with the forum), but we summarized and moved along. Saw too many awing things to process in the time we had, so this might take a while. I have way more photos to share, too, but it takes a long time to load them. Anyone who volunteers to see them might have to suffer an explanation of their significance though, so beware!

That was the short version!