Italia 2011: Mountains and Marionettes... Palermo Day Three

A fish stall in Palermo

Yesterday evening I met up with Carolina and her friend Giulia at Palazzo Riso, the Contemporary Art Museum. There was an exhibition going on of a series of site-specific works done around Sicily (not actually site-specific for Palazzo Riso). It was neat thinking about how site-specific art works are received at different sites. Specifically, I'm thinking of the way that the works in the Gori Collection at Celle are often part of exhibitions elsewhere (not the works themselves, but models and small-scale replicas of them). Naturally, so much of the original essence of the work is gone when moved to a new site.

After the museum we went to a really cool place called Kursaal Kalhesa which is an old, big, cavernous palace that now has a bar inside, a big bookshop to the side, and out in the courtyard at the back, a restaurant patio that is shaded by a massive old tree. We sat on the patio and had some wine and hors d'oeuvres and chatted.

This morning after hitting snooze 8 times again, I dragged my butt out of bed, went and had breakfast on the roof, and then went out to hike up Monte Pellegrino (which is just outside of Palermo). Anyone who knows me knows that I am NOT an enthusiastically athletic person, so this decision was rather out of character. I got about 3/4 of the way up the mountain (a very scenic albeit grueling walk) and discovered a road! With a bus stop! So I plopped down on a rock and waited for the bus to come take me down the mountain. My excuse is that I was starting to get sunburnt.... I still made it pretty far and am proud of myself. (See pictures below).

After getting back to the hotel and showering off all the sweat from my hike, I grabbed a sandwich at a nice establishment (I had a bresaola sandwich with onions and mozzarella). Then I went to the Marionette Museum which was really cool! Obviously, marionettes and puppets are a huge part of Sicilian culture, so they had lots about Sicilian marionettes, but they also had pieces from places like India and Indonesia. I learned a few things (for example, in Sicilian puppet theatre, the "good guys" and Christians enter the scene from stage left, while the "bad guys" enter from stage right) but mostly I was too busy getting pictures of all the awesome puppets (photos below).

Ciao for now!