Trip to Italy, 2017: second selection of photographs

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all photographs (c) 2017 Wim van Binsbergen

 

BORGO DE ULIVI NEAR PALAZZOLA

Here (but where? our directions were dramatically imprecise so we could not rely on the gps) we arrived long after dark under torrential rains which had turned the narrow and curving roads into mountain streams; only after five precious days on Sicily did we see the sun again. This great disappointment (in the confusion we drove into a tree and smashed a tail light) was somewhat compensated by visits to the lovely little town of Pallazola (although much more famous and touristic Noto did nothing at all to cheer us up), while the discovery of splendid Siracusa, after as much as a week, was a sheer revelation

 

 

 

 

THE TOWN OF PALAZZOLA / ANCIENT AKRAI

 

 

 

PALAZZOLO’S MUSEUM OF BARON GABRIELLE JUDICA

 

 

NOTO

The only experience at rain-flooded Noto worth recording was a Gypsy funeral. The souvenir shops are full of curious pottery masks claimed to represent Saracenes (who held the Isle of Sicily for several centuries at the height of the Middle Ages, establishing a reign of blissful peace, prosperity and the pursuit of science). The common Ancient trisceles symbol of three bent human legs converging in one point at 120 degrees from each other, turns out to be now exploited as a symbol of Sicily, with the three feet identified as the island’s three main cities, including Siracusa.

 

 

 

 

MARATEA

 

 

 

NAPOLI

 

 

 

HERCULANEUM / ERCOLANO

When the Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE, large parts of the heavily-populated Neapolis / Napoli area were covered under thck layers of volcanic ash, mud, and lava. Pompeď and Herculaneum were two towns discovered in the 18th century CE and since carefully excavated (in part). In Herculaneum, the mud blanket preserved much that can still be observed today – including the contorted skeletons of people who had flocked to what they hoped would be safety, the seashore shops.

 

 

 

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