The brutal early morning crew…. we let Matt sleep, how come nobody lets me sleep in????We encountered these “automated shopping” rooms everywhere, which are usually a couple of vending machines tucked into an unused space…. good news is that the desperate can get beers!For whatever reason, Justin Trudeau is really popular in Sicily!!Hey look at these two locals!! But why aren’t they smoking?!?They are small, but I’m gonna miss these coffees!That’s my shadow at the bottom 😂Crazy trees in full bloom of who knows whatWow Madonna’s new house is half completed!! <– hah gotta be of a “certain age” to even get that one 😀Apparently this is a more-than-average slippery place!This dude somehow managed to trip over his own arm!! The Paolo Orsi Archipelago Museum!
That’s the overhead view of the Paolo Orsi Archipelago Museum–wow what a place. Our guidebook hints “it can be a challenging place to visit.” Ya think? Look at this building and try to imagine what a bunch of typical Italians would do with the flow!! We spent over three hours there and somehow unwillingly missed a bunch of it because we couldn’t figure out how to continue!!!
But our productive three hours there were pretty amazing. There is SO MUCH material there!! It’s all from Sicily, and the exhibits begin with natural history 300m years ago. It is nothing less than astonishing what a footprint the ancients left on this very small island!
Pots were definitely legal back in the dayThis snarky dude was everywhereI call this sculpture “Man in Freezing Room Where He is Really Cold and Not Warm At All” This statue reminds me of my favorite Italian word, “man-jina”I told you pots were a thingMore of the snarky guy lolScreenshotScreenshotAll these are so amazing, yet so overwhelming My favorite part was how they reconstructed the ancient temples, showing the intricate ornamentation and roofing plans that I’d never seen before. When you see the ruins, it’s always just a rectangle of columns, but the exhibits here showed the entire structures how they must have looked back in the dayThis motif appeared repeatedly, the lion taking out some tasty meek herbivore
Today was a bit different: we let Matt sleep in while we hiked halfway across town to see old things in a museum, with the understanding we’d meet for lunch. Since our annoying AirBnB place could never manage to get us more than one set of keys, we had some logistics to work through. But despite needing a thirty-minute hike through town, Matt somehow found our restaurant within a minute of the agreed-upon time! Shows what a nice sleep can do for you!
First snails of the trip!!!Sam had a revolting-looking chicken-schnitzel type thingie which despite appearances was really good, Matt prolly had half of itRobert’s “guanciale” pasta pileMatt’s gnocchi was amazing but a little heavy obviously And last but not least, rabbit cacciatore!! It was awesome but this friggin rabbit had more bones in it than a fish in a blenderScenes walking back to OrtigiaTemple of Apollo againOn our way home from lunch, we stopped in the main plaza for beers and got to watch a crazy wedding take place in the Duomo… you can see the bride etc slink across in this pic at the rightNow they are slinking even closerThere was this amazing floral arrangement set up across the main doors of the Duomo and while the wedding was dragging on inside, tourists would pose there 😂 Love this pic!! Maybe it should be a new poster? Anyway, back to the narrative: the wedding was finally over and we went our merry way. Matt had taken off earlier to do some well-earned Italian shopping while we hung back to see the wedding finishRobert acquired a man-purse???Here’s me, for no particular reasonThis is the wedding couple’s getaway car!!
Time elapsed…..
We did make it to dinner, here’s the owner opening another of their delicious fizzy whitesSam copied Matt’s gnocchi this time Giant pile of insane mussels Almost everywhere is worth a shot!!Sam is still trying to overcome her blue gelato debt 😀Waiting outside the gelato place lolSpooky quarter moon fading in and out above usThe fam!! Great pic, to pat myself on the back 😀Back at the AirBnB, view off our balconyView down on the street… dang I’m gonna miss these views!! Can’t believe it’s already our last night here, feels like we’ve only just arrived ‘-(
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