Tag: palermo

Time to weigh your blog consumption

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Above: A peacock on the grounds of Real Alcazar in Seville, Spain

Are you sure you’re feeling okay? On examining the list of the most-read posts during the past twelve months, it hit me what is missing. Food. I think this might be the first time since launching these biannual roundups that not one post about restaurants appears on the list. Perhaps while I’m out plumping up during travels, all my readers are on Ozempic.

It always surprises me how different my list of favorites would be than yours. Your interests remain all over the map, which is good because postcard delivery lags way behind our travels. I have a full album of photos waiting to pop up willy-nilly from Mexico, Italy, Spain, England, France, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Continue reading “Time to weigh your blog consumption” →

Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: Dining from A to Lac-

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Above: A crispy slice of potato topped with fish, sauteed spinach and a crown of fried leeks at Il Mirto e la Rosa

In keeping with the practice of alphabetizing restaurants we visited to try to assist you in your future travels, A’Nica Ristorante e Pizzeria Gourmet is first up to bat. We already had been in Sicily for a month by the time we arrived in Palermo, so our standards had risen fairly high. A’Nica’s large outdoor patio was directly across a pocket park from our apartment, so it attracted us the first night.

Continue reading “Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: Dining from A to Lac-“ →

Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: Byzantine mosaics and Moorish muqarnas

postcardsfromsanantonioLeave a comment

Adam and Eve, 10th-century mosaic in the Palatine Chapel inside the Norman Palace

The Palatine Chapel is the most beautiful in the world, the most surprising religious jewel ever evolved up by the human mind and executed by the hand of an artist…. where the harshness of the Gothic style brought here by the Normans is tempered by the wonderful art of Byzantine ornamentation and decoration.”

Guy de Maupassant, “La Vie Errante,” 1901

The facade of the immense Norman Palace is so cold and boring, I could not bear to take a photo of it. The original stark building was built to serve as the residence of kings installed after the Norman conquest in 1072. But one should never judge a book by its cover….

Proclaimed the King of Sicily by papal bull in 1130, Roger II (1095-1154) had been exposed to the various architectural influences that had ebbed and flowed with invasions of the island for centuries. For the eight-year construction of the royal chapel within the palace, he recycled some rather wild Corinthian columns and tapped both the talents of Moorish builders to craft the honey-combed muqarnas of the vaulted ceilings and Byzantine artists for the exquisitely detailed mosaics of the transept. The mosaics of the nave, a little bit cruder but still stunning, were commissioned from local artisans by William I (1120-1166), known as William the Bad; and William II (1153-1189), known as William the Good.

Continue reading “Postcard from Palermo, Sicily: Byzantine mosaics and Moorish muqarnas” →