Parlemo: Churches n’ Madness
So on Wednesday we rolled into Palermo, Sicily’s capital. Seems like we hit the sweet spot in terms of unseasonable flooding; It was flooded last week, and it flooded again the day after we left. Palermo is a mix of very old, classy nice architecture, surrounded by a really hustle-bustle city with some very dodgy elements.
Firstly the traffic. They have a saying that In Palermo, red lights are for cops. When the lights turn red there, people just keep going, until a gap in the traffic, or some larger vehicle capable of crushing the majority of forward-flowing vehicles charges into the fray and cuts them off. They have the lights, and they work, but apparently people see them more as ceremonial than authoritarian. The thing that makes that even better is that there are no lanes. So the forward flowing traffic is a sea of tiny Italian hatchbacks, and a never ending swarm of mopeds and motorcycles, weaving opportunistically through tiny gaps between the cars.
I had the luck of being perched above all this madness in a gigantic bus, but even I found it reasonably terrifying. Particular favourites involve an ambitious mopedder trying to squeeze by our bus, and getting wedged between the curb and the side of the bus, before wiggling himself free. Also people too lazy or despair-filled to find parking, who park their car in the road, flick on hazard lights and walk way. The sidewalks are edged with bollards, to stop people parking and driving on them.
I wish I had more photographic evidence of this, and indeed a lot of things in Palermo. However most of them took place whilst I was on a speeding bus, frozen in horror at what I was witnessing.
Next is the trash. At the time I was there, Palermo’s trash problem was not really at fever pitch, but I did not see a bin or dumpster that was not overflowing, normally with a small mountain of surrounding trash gradually engulfing it. This is a problem in Palermo, and to lesser and greater degrees all over Italy. I’ve heard this is due to the fact that the Mafia has some sort of iron grip on the waste disposal industry, keeping supply a whole pile lower than demand.
Things get particularly hairy during garbo strikes; The streets fill up with trash, which then happens to keep mysteriously setting on fire, leaving the fire agencies racing around putting out gigantic trash-fires. There are even cases where people actually fight off the Firefighters, to keep the fire burning and get rid of these trashmountains.
Palermo has also historically had a really high crime rate; though this has tapered off somewhat in recent years. The security reaction can be seen in the modern apartment regions, each building’s front court yard being surrounded by a high, fairly martial fence, and gate. This is made all the more impressive when coupled with the relative security of an Italian apartment door, which I’ll hopefully finally get around to showing in the next post. There is a whole district of such buildings, which as a side note, were apparently built as a cash-grab by a corrupt mayor, who built cheaply, and demolished a whole bunch of historic buildings to make space for the process.
Note: This shit would be a whole pile better with photos, but the bus factor again screws me over. I’m hesitant to yoink photos from other places to illustrate all this, but they wouldn’t be hard to find if you want to look. I also wanna point out this stuff seems sorta grim, but most of my time was spent exploring the sparkly inner region of Palermo, and I felt that I had to extrapolate on some of the very real shit that also compromises this place. I have decided, as a sort of makeshift travel journalist, that I have scruples, or something.
… and these reasons and more are why I vote Palermo city-most-in-need-of-an-irl-Batman-or-if-technology-significantly-advances-maybe-a-Robocop. Note to our would be Italian batman, the Italian word for bat is like Pipistrello I think which sounds wussy as hell. Stick with the English word bat, at least. Lawsuits be damned. You become the night, Senor Bat!
Tangent: While I’m talking about copyright infringement, apparently the lawsuits haven’t, or maybe can’t get here. You see it all over the shit. Some sort of sports store, with the cast of high school musical inexplicably plastered on their billboard opposite our house, a Popeye Cafe, a Tinkerbell /Peter pan themed toy store. Shit is moderately bananas.
Also before I wrap up, here is about the only decent shot I got of the more seedy regions of Palermo, I’m not all talk and no photos. Just about 90% all talk.
And now that’s out of the way, onto the classier side of Palermo. The inner district of the town is full of grand old buildings, mainly theatres, churches and government buildings. All of these are riddled with really classy carving and architecture.
A few shots outside Palermo’s main church. This church was apparently once a base for the inquisition, and it’s courtyard was used to burn heretics and the like. Lovely.
All entrances of the courtyard are bracketed by a pair of these classy statues.
A few shots of the inside of the church. Low light played havoc here, and with the million other churches I visit in todays post, with my ability to take too many decent photos. A shot here of one of the basins, and the painted roof.
Gratuitous, statue nudity, how bout it. This fountain, called what sort of translates as the shameless fountain, or something thereabouts, given the amount o’ statue-junk on display.
And of a rendering of everyones favourite folk-tale of no-hand shoving some sort of violin into the neck of a three-headed dog. He is one of the few statues wearing some sort of semblance of pants. Perhaps safety equipment for his dog-welding experiment.Yep.
Two of the stray dogs you seem to see around these towns and monuments occasionally. They live off scraps from the various passing tourists and the like. They seem to do okay in the summer, but I worry about how they winter.
And here, at church II, our tour guide is fined 1000 euros for talking facts n’ dates inside the church, whilst not being a Palermo officially sanctioned tour guide thing. Jerks!
A shot of the inside of the church. This place is apparently Greco-Romanian Orthodox rather than Catholic. This is about all I know about it, as what Italian talk of our tour guide I could understand was cut off by by those dastardly Italian tour-cops.
I finally get a decent shot of the roof-fresco in here! It is upside down! I am a moron. Whee!
A shot from one of the city gates, featuring Palermo-ian nobles… uh… MC poncy-wrist, and his wife, spiral boobs.
A few shots of the apartment blocks in Palermo, showing their age.
Though not all the buildings are so poorly maintained.
And now a series of lamps, each classier than the last seen in Palermo. This became a photography challenge for me throughout the day. The winner being a rather dim photo of one seen inside the Palermo theatre with the cherubs sculpted into the base and everything. Unnecessarily nice!
One of the Twin lion statues outside the Palermo theatre.
… and here’s the other one. Note lovingly rendered lion balls. I thought sculptors would skim over that sort of thing. Not in Palermo.
A Palermo street. You tell those nazis what for, graffiti artist.
A bus, with onboard retarder! Finally. I swear I saw another one of these, moving too fast for me to adequately photograph, which claimed to have the far more specific child retarder. I have no idea what that is really even supposed to mean, unintended implications aside.
And finally a few shots from Moriale, a very fancy church on the outskirts of Palermo.
The entire roof and walls of this church are a massive mosaic, depicting stories of both the Old and New Testament of the bible.
Including of course everyone’s favourite story, Jesus lazer-eyes the fuck outta some naked dude.
The church also houses the tombs of two kings. Unfortunately only one of the photos turned out. Kings coffins are apparently way huger than regular coffins. Maybe Sicily had really giant kings. I hope so.
Sicilian sculptors struggle again with the issue of scale and perspective.
A few shots of the views of the towns and suburbs around Palermo, from the site of Moriale.
Well this post contained an unforeseen level of me bangin’ on. Congrats if you actually got all the way through it, to reach this semi-apology. Thanks for listening. The next one promises to be significantly shorter, I think.
Those Sicilian sculptors and their perspective! I may have literally died laughing. And I think Jess just inhaled a whole handful of popcorn while reading. But she is okay now! Don’t buy into those tabloids.
This was great! I loved reading this. Keep it up!
I also particularly liked that this entry had lots of writing in it! You make Italy terrifying and charming in equal measure!
Man, that was one of the best posts yet. You should become a travel journalist for reals, yo! I’d read your stuff, and decide on whether or not to go there based on your ramblings.
Don’t know what else to add that won’t be repeating previous comments! But I’m glad you’re better, and you’re having a mad and whimsical time over there. Bring back presents!