Early Vacations - 2004 to Sicily

Last week’s FSO post about vacations took me down memory lane, forcing me to look at old photos and to straighten out numerous folders and photo albums with 35mm shots.  I found a post about Buenos Aires Argentine where I tell you all that I will write a second post about the new docks - Puerto Madero Waterfront – and then don’t.  I can’t imagine how many times that has happened.  How many times have I dropped a thought and said, “that a different story, will tell you later.” and then don’t.  Can you think of something I didn’t tell you and should have?

In the spirit of showing you things I have missed, I want to do a few posts about vacations that we took between 2002, when I got my first digital camera for Christmas, and early 2007 when I started to write and show photos on ‘Flowers and More’.  I might also go back to my 35mm photo albums and scan to show you anything else of real interest but for now I will hold that thought () until later. 

Because I showed you scanned photos of Taormina, Sicily on Friday, a trip we took in 2002, no specific dates found but if memory serves me correctly it was in late spring.  I thought that I would start this trip in nostalgia  with our second trip to Sicily in May of 2004.  This trip was from Rio; I think that Camillo got really good ticket prices because we went Rio, Sao Paulo, Zurich, Rome, Palermo - changing planes and with stopovers on each step of the flight.  In Zurich, we had a major stop, like 5 or 6 hours, so we took the local train to have lunch in old town Zurich.  After 2 days in Palermo, we took a train to Cefalù, then a boat tour out to Lapari and Vulcano, both islands north of Cefalù with live (not necessarily active) volcanoes.  Then after another day or so in Cefalù, another night train all the way back to Rome where we met Patty (my daughter) and Vivi (Camillo’s).  We spent several weeks showing them all around Rome and onward.  Yes, was a very nice trip indeed.   **I don’t know if it has improved but train schedules in Italy are hard to track down.  Travel agent do (did) not have the schedules you have to go to the train stations.  Like in this case they are not right in the city.  Our night train along the coast at sunset was great, then at the port at Messina the whole train was loaded into the bowels  of a ferry.  All of the doors snapped shut – locking us in – twenty minutes later the whole train came off the ferry and early the next morning we were in Rome.

      

For us, though, Cefalù was the highlight of the trip.  All of Sicily and the surrounding islands have a long and varied history.  Starting back several thousand years before Christ, the foundation of this city being Greek, and running until joining the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.  At one time or another the Island of Sicily was Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Norman, and Arab. The Cefalù Cathedral reflects this history. 

Started in 1131, the façade being finished in 1240 and the cathedral was consecrated in 1267.  Its architecture is varied, reflecting the conquering groups through the years it was built and expanded. 

   

Take away the great food, the natural scenery, the ancient architectural flavor – strip this city down and it is still worth visiting just to see the Cathedral.  For more photos see the slideshow below.

Cefalù, Sicily, Italy VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL