This was our free day in Palermo, so we celebrated by not getting up until after 8.30 and having a late breakfast. Then we set off for the centre of the city. The traffic was at a complete standstill along the main road near our hotel, but we caught a bus anyway, to the central station. At least I was sitting down!
At the central station, we failed to find out where to get a bus to Piazza Verdi to see Theatro Massimo, the opera house, and ended up walking there, which was miles. We got tickets for the Theatre tour; there was to be a premiere tonight, of a couple of modern operas set to music by Ravel; stalls tickets were €130 so we thought a tour would be a rather less expensive way to see the theatre. Anyway, we have no clothes fit for visits to the opera. I hoped to see the backstage area, but was to be disappointed in that hope.
We saw the entrance hall, which was impressive and full of costumes from operas performed there. The ones below are from Lohengrin.
Sadly, this was the only place inside where we were allowed to take pictures. We had a short talk about the opera house, which was opened in 1897, and is the third largest in Europe. We sat in the auditorium, and admired the domed ceiling, which is divided into panels like a daisy and painted in a somewhat Baroque style with an allegorical portrayal of the triumph of music. The panels can be opened to let air in, which apparently helps to keep the place cool. There are no performances in July and August though - even with the dome open it would be too hot.
We went upstairs to the Royal Box, to see where part of The Godfather Part III was filmed, and to admire the beautiful ceiling painting, a branch of almond blossom painted on silk.
We also saw the famous gilded marble Sala Pompeiana, where noblemen once gathered, partly because it had such an echo that it was impossible to hear what any other group of people was discussing. The room is built of stone, but panelled in mahogany and this is what causes the echo, which everybody in the party was able to try out. The paintings around the dome mimic those of Pompeii, which explains the name.
The tour was interesting, though rather short. It was also hard to hear the guide. The concert piano was being tuned, and various singers were running through their voice exercises, so it was quite a noisy place
After we left there, we had another long walk right over to the east of the city, to see the Regional Art Gallery. It is housed in a 15th century Palazzo, and you can still see some echoes of its origin.
Everywhere you look there are these window seats, just like the ones I photographed in Old Soar Manor, two centuries earlier.
There are many 15th century statues downstairs, but the highlight of this section is The Triumph of Death, by an unknown artist. Death is a skeleton, astride a skeletal horse, trampling over heaps of bodies.
Most of the paintings are upstairs. I was disappointed that the rooms with the earliest paintings were closed, but there were some wonderful paintings there, including this 15th century masterpiece by Antonello da Messina of the Annunciation.
There were also some wonderful 17th century paintings, such as a very good copy of Caravaggio's Supper Emmaus; I suppose this is not surprising as Caravaggio spent 9 months in Sicily. I was also impressed by several works by Jusepe Ribera.
After a couple of hours at this gallery, we discovered it was well past lunch time, so we went off to have some lunch, after which Paul was anxious to try the Modern Art Gallery, so this was our next destination.
This gallery is also in a Palazzo. There is a charming garden with colonnade which you pass through as you move between rooms.
The art was not really very modern, mostly 18th and 19th century. I was greatly taken with this statue of Christopher Columbus
and this wonderful painting by somebody I had never heard of, Francesco Lojacono.
By the time we had been round this gallery, I was very tired, and we set off to walk more miles back to the Wi-Fi cafe I used yesterday, so that we could have coffee and post yesterday's blog. Then we walked back to the hotel. I was pretty tired after all the walking, so we elected to eat in the hotel to avoid yet more walking.
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