We started our day at 7:30 am with breakfast at the hotel, where we were offered a wide variety of foods, including scrambled eggs, bacon, fruits, and even cannolis! Yes, Italians eat what we would consider desserts and sweets for breakfast!
After our breakfast, we left our short stay in Palermo at Colleverde Park Hotel to head towards our next hotel in Palermo! As we ventured towards Palermo, we had breathtaking views of rolling hilltops, large rocks, farms, and even beaches that are part of the Mediterranean Sea. Despite the weather being overcast and rainy, I was still able to capture quite a few good pictures.
On our way to Palermo, we made a stop in Monreale to visit the Duomo Di Monreale, which is the cathedral of the city, and Chiostro Di Monreale, which is a monastery connected to the cathedral. Anita, our tour guide, is originally from Germany and was very, very passionate and informative in regards to the places we visited in Monreale!
When in the cathedral, one is immediately blown away by the decor throughout the church, as there are Gothic pointed arches, mosaics, and various other eye-catching decorations. After further examination, one can really begin to understand the hybridity, as Dr. Huber taught us, shown within the church. For starters, hybridity is known to be the cross of two or more different cultures, which creates a different culture that retains elements of each of the original cultures. The cathedral showed hybridity because different cultures’ influences can be seen inside and outside of the church. The Arabs built and decorated the church, which is evident by the Arab ornament throughout. The Christians’ influence is clearly shown by the images of Jesus Christ and chronological order of biblical stories told through the mosaics on the wall. While the Normans’ influence may not be as clear than the other two groups, they were primarily in charge of overseeing the construction.
Another important element the church shows us is the importance of political and religious sectors on the identity of Sicilians, something Dr. Carignan highlighted while visiting. The cathedral contained a throne for King William II, who ordered construction of the church, as well as a throne for the priest. On the wall above the political throne, there was a mosaic showing Jesus crowning William II, a picture Dr. Carignan showed us in one of our classes at Elon. He said that whoever spotted this mosaic first would be bought a cappuccino. Shoutout to Bailey for having such a keen eye—hopefully you enjoy your cappuccino! Anyways, the significance of the mosaic represents that political power is of greater importance in this particular area of Sicily than religious power, a concept that I’m sure will be revisited throughout the rest of this course.
After visiting the cathedral, we headed over to the Chiostro Di Monreale, which is a monastery connected to the cathedral. At the monastery, we learned that the cloister was the largest in Southern Italy and one of the most medieval in all of Italy! We spent a majority of our time here looking at the capitals on columns, as each of the columns had different images on them, including Christian, Pagan, and other culture’s images. While at the monastery, we also discussed how the space compared to the Roman villa. One of our main takeaways when considering this idea was that both contain a peristyle, which demonstrates the value of possessing power over nature. Also, many of my classmates and I drew comparisons between the figures within the decoration, as many contained religious themes and animals.
We then got lunch in Monreale and shopped for souvenirs before venturing to Palermo, where we checked into Hotel Garibaldi! After settling in, we had optional activities led by our TLAs, which ended up being a walk to the waterfront where we could journal or sightseeing at an archeological museum. While at the waterfront, we were happy to watch many types of dogs play with each other!
Later in the evening, we found food for dinner and then settled in as preparation for our busy day tomorrow exploring Palermo by-foot.
Stay tuned as another one of my classmates will be giving updates tomorrow.
Ciao,
Corey McCall
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