AN AFTERNOON IN CEFALÙ

Although I've loved Sicily for over twenty years now and have lived here for eight, I had, until last Sunday, never managed to get to Cefalù. You can see Cefalù as you come down from Gibilmanna and I hadn't realised how close its main buildings are to the sea or what a compact and prettily coloured town it is.

The name Cefalù comes from a Greek word meaning "head" and refers to the massive rock beneath which the town stands. The town dates back to at least Greek times but it was the Normans who rebuilt it nearer the sea and legend has it that King Ruggero 11, having run into a dangerous storm whilst sailing to Palermo in 1131, swore that if he and his ship were spared, he would have a cathedral built where he landed. San Giorgio appeared and guided the ship to safety at Cefalù. Well, I'm going to believe it, anyway!

The narrow, winding streets reminded me of Ligurian towns like Alassio, as did the pleasant, relaxed atmosphere:

The Duomo, begun in 1131 as Ruggero had promised, was restored in 1559:

The Cristo Pantocratore above the altar reminded me of the mosaics in Monreale Cathedral, with which the building is twinned:

We'd had a very early start so decided that we now deserved lunch in the main square. A plate of antipasti  with panelle [chickpea flour fritters] at the back and fried caciotta cheese with orange on the right was just what we needed!

Polpette of beef with pinenuts and sultanas for me

and an entrecôte with more of that orange-flavoured caciotta for my friend:

Time for a wander down to the harbour:

Another view of the bay in the late afternoon light:

Finally, there had to be a stop for a slice of chocolate and coffee semifreddo and I'm happy to be able to tell you that they don't stint on helpings in Cefalù!

La Villa Romana del Casale, vicino a Piazza Armerina, Sicilia

Today a UNESCO World Heritage Site, La Villa Romana del Casale, situated 5 km outside the town of Piazza Armerina in central Sicily, is visited annually by more than half a million people. What draws these tourists there are the more than forty rooms with 12,500 square feet of mosaic pavement, the best collection of Roman mosaics in existence today.

A mosaic from the Corridor of the Great Hunt

I was fortunate enough to visit this wonderful spot in 2000, as a side trip from my stay in Taormina. A group of about fifteen of us took a tour arranged by the language school where I was studying and we had an excellent Italian guide, with the tour being in Italian of course. It seems that so many of the guides I have had on trips to Italy have been architects. I don't know if there is an over supply of architects in Italy and they cannot find work in their field, but they certainly make splendid guides.

Catwalks are used to traverse the mosaics and you can see the overhead
protective cover. Our excellent architect guide is in the blue shirt.

The villa, which was the house of a large surrounding estate, was constructed over an older villa around 320 AD. While there is much controversy about who the owner was, he was certainly a man of wealth and power. From the mosaics we can see that he had connections in Africa, he loved hunting as well as music and poetry and that he was probably a pagan. The villa was thought to be destroyed by invaders about 150 years later although some buildings continued to be used until the twelfth century when there was a fire. The site was abandoned and finally the whole was covered by mud landslides. It is this fact that enabled the mosaics to survive and be so well preserved today.

Another part of the Great Hunt mosaic

At the end of the nineteenth century preliminary excavations were made of the site but most of the work was done during three periods in the twentieth century. The major excavations were done between 1950-60, when a cover was built over the whole to protect the mosaics.

The furnaces where wood was burned to heat the water both
for the baths and the heating system of the villa itself

The extensive mosaics of the villa were probably done in the early fourth century by North African artists, for the materials are considered African in origin. A very detailed account of the mosaics is given here where the workmanship is discussed as well as the mosaics of each room. Of course when we talk about a room, we are basically talking about the floor because most of the walls, although there, are damaged, however some frescoes and wall paintings and niches for statues still exist.

A different style of mosaic, with a central "erotic" image, in the
antechamber to the main bedroom in the private quarters

Visitors to the villa walk on catwalks built on the old walls which you can see in my photo. It is not easy to photograph the mosaics since you stand high above them. In addition they look rather dull because they are open to the air and covered in dust, although in fact when cleaned they have good colour on the whole.

Of course the most widely known of the mosaics is the Bikini Girls Mosaic which I posted about previously here. It is situated in the Sala delle Dieci Ragazze, The Room of the 10 Girls. But another mosaic floor, in the Ambulacro della Grande Caccia, The Corridor of the Great Hunt, measuring 60m or 197 ft in length by 5 m or 16ft in width, is surely more splendid. The mosaics depicted there are among the most impressive from the ancient world, showing the hunting and capture of wild animals and their transportation to Rome for use in the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus. I'm afraid my scanned photos do not do justice to this amazing place. Click to enlarge for an improvement.

I would consider my visit to this villa one of the highlights of my stay in Sicily and recommend it highly should you go there. As the Italians say, Vale la pena. It's worth the trouble.

I would like to thank Welshcakes Limoncello for inviting me to guest post on her site and to share some of my experiences of Sicily with her readers.

This is crossposted at Sicily Scene and Nobody Important.