Sunday, February 1, 2009

A Rainy Day in Palermo


While the Elephant Front Office met with a group of now retired veteran Elephants about the organization and future direction of Sicily's only Serie A Italian Football League franchise, I was volunteered to drive Pony's son, Eduardo, and Davide, a rookie running back, on a two hour drive to Palermo to learn the ins and outs of the IFL's new computerized statistics reporting system.  We left Catania at 8:00 a.m. and after their grueling five hour training session arrived back in Catania at about 5:30 p.m.

Eduardo in blue with his back to us on the left and Davide to his right.

What to do for the five hours of their training session?  That's easy, Palermo has the most famous Catacombs with the most mummies on the entire island!

CHIUSO!!!

The sign says that the Catacombs are closed EVERY Sunday through March 31st.  Of course today is Super Bowl Sunday.

I'm feeling more and more like a frustrated Howard Carter every day.

No problem, there are still a lot of interesting things to see in Palermo, Sicily's largest city.

HUGE door, I wonder what's behind it?

The ornate Porta Nuova

Two GREAT mustaches on these statues that are part of the Porta Nuova

Via Vittorio Emanuele

Go to any Italian city that has more than one street and I'll bet you that one of them is named in honor of Vittorio Emanuele, the first king of a unified Italy in 1860.

Cool Coat of Arms

Check out the boots on this fellow.

Palermo's Cathedral
Our Lady of the Assumption

Hey, Assumption is my Mom's name!

Yet another great Duomo

Quattro Canti

A very cool intersection where all four corners have facades similar to this one.  These date from the 1600's.

Fontana Pretoria

Built between 1552-1555 by a Tuscan sculptor named Francesco Camilliani, it was nicknamed "the fountain of shame' due to all of the nude statues.  How times have changed.

An AWESOME beard at the Fontana Pretoria

"I DO NOT KNOW"

There are some strange customs at the West end of Sicily it turns out.

Next up for the Elephants is Super Bowl Monday, yes, kickoff is at 12:20 a.m., Monday, February 2nd local time.

HAPPY GROUNDHOG'S DAY!!!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

About "I don't know" photo.
People who play cards in public gardens (usally old people) leave their chairs in place.

George said...

I guess I need to buy a chair.

Anonymous said...

You're not so old, coach :-)