Sicilian getaways
Sicily’s
rugged beauty and chequered heritage make it an attractive getaway – in the
romantic, not in the Mafia sense of the word. In fact, far from being a shadowy
underworld populated by secretive families and deadly vows of silence, this
beautiful Mediterranean isle – with its eclectic mix of history, culture,
cuisine and laid-back living – is a charming, if often crumbling, retreat.
December 2006
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©2006 K.
Diab |
Haven for
conquerors
Palermo, with its prized natural harbour, is
like its history: chequered. Different aspects of the Sicilian capital pull you
east, north, south and even far to the west. Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans,
Arabs, Normans, Spaniards, Italians – they’ve all left their mark here. In
fact, Palermo, which was founded in the eight century BC, is reputed to be one
of the most conquered cities in the world.
Walking down the street, we were reminded of
various other places. Sometimes, it felt like being in Europe, at other times,
it felt like being in North Africa or the Middle East. Then there was that
unmistakable Mediterranean spirit reminiscent of Alexandria – with the notable
absence of the headscarves that have mushroomed around Egypt in recent years –
and other Med cities.
Nearly a millennium ago, Palermo was the
richest city in Europe, luring the fundamentalist Normans to declare a crusade
to invade and oust the island’s ‘heathen’ Arab rulers, who had originally come
there at the invitation of one of the island’s two Byzantine prefects – who
lacked an army and was at war with the other prefect – and liked the
surroundings so much they decided to stay for nearly two centuries.
The Norman invasion began six years before
William the Conqueror’s famous invasion of England in 1066 and ended six years
later. This time, no crusade could be called, since England was part of
Christendom and so William claimed the English throne had been promised to him
by Edward the Confessor, his childless cousin.
Today, Palermo is one of the poorest. Although
it has its fair share of beautiful architecture, large swathes of the town are
crumbling, and its slums could compete with those of any major developing world
city.
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©2006
K. Maes |
A millennium ago, Sicily was said to have more
than 300 mosques. In keeping with ancient traditions, the Sicilian capital today
houses quite possibly the largest per capita concentration of churches I have
ever seen. To strangers like us, it seemed to offer more nourishment for the
soul than for the stomach, given the relative difficulty we faced finding
non-touristy restaurants that were open on a week night. It seems that a lot of
the city’s residents either cannot afford to eat out regularly or still regard
lunch as the main meal of the day.
Visiting so many churches shed an interesting
semantic light on our holiday. Holy days were once dedicated to
particular sacred occasions, saints and pilgrimages. Although many people flock
to certain destinations during the holiday season, the word has largely been
stripped of its spiritual aspect. Clocking up so many churches during our trip
felt strangely paradoxical, given that it was still Ramadan. We may have
visited certain notable churches, like the pilgrims of yore did, but we did it
to admire the bricks and mortar, not to confer with our lord and saviour.
That said, there is an element of the
metaphysical, if not, strictly speaking, the sacred. One enters an ancient
building to touch the past, to get a sense of lost worlds, to be awed by
humanity’s towering achievements, that enduring legacy of higher ideals and
lower motives, of limitless love and hate, of fear and trust. When visiting the
Aya Sofia or Karnak Temple, I found myself wondering what kind of awe and
reverence an ancient citizen would have felt in the same spot.
That’s not to say that religion is dead in
Sicily. Evidence suggests that it is in better health than in much of Europe.
The proprietor of the pension we stayed at in Palermo had, in his own rather
eccentric manner, tried to transform his downtown apartment into a reverential
chapel. There were icons of the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ hanging up on
every available wall, little religious statues on various surfaces and a
calendar marking every single saint’s day on it. “But I like Muslims,” he was
at pains to point out during a conversation about religion. “I don’t like
extremists – Muslims or Christians.” In fact, he seemed proud of his island’s
Arab influence and the Med’s shared heritage – something too many other
Italians forget or conveniently ignore. He proudly displayed Ancient Egyptian
wall paintings and a Nefertiti bust alongside his Christian iconography. He’d
picked these up during his time in Egypt when he was working as a petroleum
engineer.
Now retired for more than a decade, his
daughter moved away and his wife dead, he decided to transform his apartment
into a pension, partly for the extra income and partly, we imagined, for the
company. During our stay, we entered into all manner of meandering debate with
him, as his fluid thoughts followed their own animated stream which appeared to
make perfect sense to him, expressed in his trademark mixture of tongues. He
would start his first sentence in English but, as he picked up momentum and
interest, he would lapse into Italian, sprinkled with occasional Frenchisms,
and we would struggle to keep up – Katleen doing a better job at deciphering
his words than I.
ã2006
K. Diab. Unless otherwise stated, all the content on this website is the
copyright of Khaled Diab.