Palermo Hotel Carrubella Monre Monreale

partie de palermo pour aller a monreale! nous avons vue la cathedrale de cette petite ville. les murs et le plafond sont couvert de mosaic faite en grande partie avec le l'or. puis de cette ville on avait une belle vue sur la baie de palermo.

ensuite, de retour a palermo pour se rendre a l'aeroport puis prendre un vol pour rome. ou nous somme maintenant.

... eu un service incroyable, on doute meme que le personnel soient italient tellement ils etaient fin!

finalement, a la tomber du jour, ou l'heure de l'apero et des tapas en italie la ville commence a vivre, nous avons gouter au marons chaud puis a quelques tapas avant de rentrer !

... parade out of the St Francis church because it was a public holiday to celebrate Mary.
We got the best view of it all from the balcony of the restaurant and then got caught up in the parade again whilst walking back from the restaurant to the hostel.
Tops day all round

Ended the day with a late arvo bus ride to Catania with Nonie,Laura and Jay and checked into Ostello Plebiscito which is the best hostel of all the ones we stayed in Italy.

... everything around it! Quite a bit of 'smoke' issuing from the volcano meant one could not really see the 3400m summit, even from a good distance.



Our van took us up the neverending winding access road up Etna, until we reached 2000m elevation, and the tourist centre of the volcano came into view. This is where all the souvenir shops, eateries, car parks, bus-stops are all situated. Marco dropped us off near a restaurant and adjacent crater walk, advising us we ...

... place with solid tmber pews arranged inside a rock cave, all covered by a facade which looks from the outside like a white church entrance.

There were some striking views over the city & coastline from the very windy access road to the top.

As we arrived back in the city centre, ready for the brief walk to our hotel, a thunderstorm got the better of us and we were wet by the time we arrived at the lobby! Nothing for it but some rumbos and another early night!

... time-trial car race was taking place on the winding roads on one side of the mountain, meaning police had closed that route to the top. The noise of the straining engines could be heard echoing around the lower reaches of the place, and was quite interesting to watch the speeds of the cars as they wound their way past, below our panoramic viewing area up high.

Our return trip to Palermo featured 120-140kph speeds on the motorway, even in a Mercedes van!

... tiles in the world....truly something to see, and the views across Palermo & the nearby coastline were very nice as well.



A morning well spent, and well worth the money, as we saw & learnt so much more than tourists travelling by themselves would expect to. We walked to local trattoria for a late lunch, then stocked up on supplies at the nearby supermercato, before snacks & rums for tea and an early night!

Hello from Montreale... A scenic overlook of Palermo. There was to much smog to snap any good pictures but the inside of this cathedral is amazing. You can pay a fee to climb to the top for a nice overlook.. and eat squid in a nearby restaurant.

... on prend un coca dans un bar alors qu´Anna choisit une granita accompagnée d´une brioche. On arrive au camping, on choisit rapidement l´emplacement sachant qu´on ne reste qu´une nuit. On monte la tente en très peu de temps et on file se baigner. Il fait alors nuit et c´est d´un calme ! Pour ma part, ça reste un excellent souvenir, j´ai plus qu´apprécier de me baigner en pleine nuit (Perrine est terrorisée dans l´eau noire...); On remonte et on va dans ...

... and spectacular mosaics in the cathedral date from the 13 and 14 hundreds were difficult to see in the dark upper reaches of the interior. Fortunately there were coin-operated lights that let us see the Biblical stories and heroes of the Norman builders of the cathedral. Kiki said while she liked the architecture, she did not care for the Byzantine mosaics and the baroque additions and art. Jessica was surprised to see how big the image of Jesus was. She said that she realized that ...