Sicily, the Amalfi Coast and Rome
Mike and Judy Henderson
September 18 - 28, 2018
I'm going to leave the map on each web page so you can see where we are.
9/24/2018 (Monday) We arrived in Palermo this morning. Palermo is the largest city in Sicily and the port is industrial.
Our tour this morning is to the Monreale Cathedral.
It's about 14km from the dock in Palermo, but we went through town to see some of the sights - and the traffic was terrible - so it took us quite a long time to get there. When we arrived, the bus parked on a lower level and we had to walk up a fair number of steps.
We reached the square where the church is located.
There was an old car show in the square. Here are a couple of 356 Porsches that were in the show.
We went into the church. Here's a view toward the altar.
A closer view of the altar.
The interior walls of the church were decorated in mosaics.
The sarcophagii of William I (the Bad) and William II (the Good) are located in the church. Here's the sarcophagus of William I.
And the sarcophagus of William II.
Ed and Joellyn outside the church.
We then went to the Tasca Sallier de La Tour Winery in the Jato Valley. Here's Michelangelo with the guide from the winery.
The winery was in operation, processing grapes, so we didn't do a tour of the facility. We did have a wine tasting outdoors.
When we left the winery we headed back into Palermo to Teatro Massimo, the Palermo opera house.
We had lunch in the restaurant of the opera house.
Then we took a tour of the opera house.
A view of the box seats.
Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of the very special event that Tauck arranged for us in the Opera House - a private performance of arias from La Traviata. It featured three principal soloists from the opera house, singing six duets, with piano accompaniment. It was thrilling, and they sang beautifully.
Then, it was back to the ship and we sailed for Messina. The original plan was to sail to Taormina, but the schedule was changed so that we could dock at Messina instead of using the zodiacs in Taormina. The anticipation of heavy seas made zodiac loading too dangerous. We'll bus from Messina to Taormina.
The sun was setting behind one of the hills in Palermo as we sailed out.
It was very windy. Here are Judy and Roland talking on the top deck.
As the sun set, the captain set the sails on the ship for our sail to Messina.
