Download or read book Palermo Sicily Its Surroundings written by Joanne Lane and published by Hunter Publishing, Inc. This book was released on 2009-09-02 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a guide to all aspects of Palermo and its surroundings: where to stay and eat, what to see and do, how to get around. The island of Sicily is like another world compared to the rest of Italy - only three km away over the Messina Straits. And in fact the people proclaim themselves Sicilians first, with distinct differences in language, culture, food and day-to-day living. Many visitors find this surprising but refreshing. The richness in culture is seen in the architecture, theater, cinema and art found everywhere. Despite the poverty, unemployment and much-publicized Mafia control, it's a vibrant and volatile place but far safer than tourists expect.Sicilians have a strong sense of community, the pace of life is slow, schedules seem to have no importance and it can be simultaneously frustrating, entertaining and totally memorable. But, whether you come here to fish, dive, hike, ski, play golf or trace your family origins, there is plenty that is appealing to visitors. The capital of Sicily is immediately enticing despite its frenetic traffic and heady markets. It's an exciting, in-your-face and up-your-nose kind of city that's brash, fast and loveable - one of those places that is both loathed and loved in almost the same heartbeat. Jamie Oliver accurately described it as "modern-day anarchy" when he toured in 2005 writing and filming Jamie's Italy (BBC). There is crumbling architectural wealth, the diversity of multi-ethnic communities, an energetic population, tantalizing markets and wonderful coastlines, with the island of Ustica lying just off the coast. You can also retreat to the heights of Monte Pellegrino to the north or to the fine beach of Mondello. Palermo Highlights: Monreale - The ceiling of the church at Monreale in the heights above the city is a stunning example of medieval workmanship, with some of the most important of Christian mosaics in the world. Vucciria Market - The heady delights of Palermo are best experienced on foot in this bustling age-old market. Let your feet do the walking past stalls selling everything from film, batteries and electrical cord to mouth-watering delicacies like sun-dried tomatoes, eggplant and home-made pasta. Mondello - The pleasant beachfront, with fine seafood dining on ceramic plates, is a good excursion from the capital. Monte Pellegrino - Escape from the hustle and bustle of Palermo into the pleasant park area to the sanctuary on top. Bus it or walk to stretch your legs. Ustica - The turtle-shaped island off the coast is a pleasant day-escape from the busy capital. Its sparkling clear waters are perfect for scuba-diving. Monte Iato - This small mountain 30 km west of Palermo is a rocky slope littered with the remains of ancient cities in one of the region's most beautiful areas.

Download or read book Rick Steves Sicily written by Rick Steves and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 550 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Swim in the sparkling Mediterranean, marvel at the peak of Mount Etna, and get to know this region's timeless charm: with Rick Steves on your side, Sicily can be yours! Inside Rick Steves Sicily you'll find: Comprehensive coverage for spending a week or more exploring Sicily Rick's strategic advice on how to get the most out of your time and money, with rankings of his must-see favorites Top sights and hidden gems, from Mount Etna and the Byzantine mosaics of Monreale to the Ballarò street market and Siracusa's puppet museum How to connect with culture: Savor seafood-centric cuisine made from ancient recipes, catch an opera performance at the Teatro Massimo, or sample authentic Marsala wine Beat the crowds, skip the lines, and avoid tourist traps with Rick's candid, humorous insight The best places to eat, sleep, and relax with a glass of local Nero d'Avola Self-guided walking tours of lively neighborhoods and incredible museums Detailed maps for exploring on the go Useful resources including a packing list, a historical overview, and useful Italian phrases Over 350 bible-thin pages include everything worth seeing without weighing you down Complete, up-to-date information on Palermo, Cefalù, Trapani and the West Coast, Agrigento and the Valley of the Temples, Ragusa and the Southeast, Catania, Taormina, and more Make the most of every day and every dollar with Rick Steves Sicily.

Download or read book Sicily written by John Julius Norwich and published by Random House. This book was released on 2015-07-21 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically acclaimed author John Julius Norwich weaves the turbulent story of Sicily into a spellbinding narrative that places the island at the crossroads of world history. “Sicily,” said Goethe, “is the key to everything.” It is the largest island in the Mediterranean, the stepping-stone between Europe and Africa, the link between the Latin West and the Greek East. Sicily’s strategic location has tempted Roman emperors, French princes, and Spanish kings. The subsequent struggles to conquer and keep it have played crucial roles in the rise and fall of the world’s most powerful dynasties. Yet Sicily has often been little more than a footnote in books about other empires. John Julius Norwich’s engrossing narrative is the first to knit together all of the colorful strands of Sicilian history into a single comprehensive study. Here is a vivid, erudite, page-turning chronicle of an island and the remarkable kings, queens, and tyrants who fought to rule it. From its beginnings as a Greek city-state to its emergence as a multicultural trading hub during the Crusades, from the rebellion against Italian unification to the rise of the Mafia, the story of Sicily is rich with extraordinary moments and dramatic characters. Writing with his customary deftness and humor, Norwich outlines the surprising influence Sicily has had on world history—the Romans’ fascination with Greek civilization dates back to their sack of Sicily—and tells the story of one of the world’s most kaleidoscopic cultures in a galvanizing, contemporary way. This volume has been a long time coming—Norwich began to explore Sicily’s colorful history during his first visit to the island in the early 1960s. The dean of popular historians leads his readers through the millennia with the steady narrative hand of a master teacher or the world’s most learned tour guide. Like the island itself, Sicily is a book brimming with bold flavors that begs to be revisited again and again. Praise for Sicily “Suavely readable . . . The very model of a popular historian, [Norwich] writes to give pleasure to the common reader. And what pleasure it is.”—The Wall Street Journal “Entertaining on every page . . . There is something ancient and sorrowful in Sicily, ‘some dark, brooding quality,’ just as captivating as its spellbinding history or its beautiful and varied landscapes, from beaches to lemon groves, pine forests to volcanoes. . . . The most amiable and freewheeling of guides, Norwich will always find time for the amusing anecdote.”—The Sunday Times “Utterly engrossing . . . written with passion about the art and architecture of this magical island, filled with gossipy tidbits and sweeping historical theories.”—The Daily Beast “Dazzling . . . Norwich is an elegantly graceful and entertaining storyteller.”—Richmond Times-Dispatch “Charming . . . richly nuanced history relayed with enormous fondness.”—Kirkus Reviews “A brisk and always-lively tour.”—Open Letters Monthly “Norwich is deeply in love with Sicily. [His] boundless affection has inspired a determined effort to understand its painful past. The result is impressionistic, as love often is.”—The Times “Norwich sketches personalities vividly. . . . He does the island and the reader a generous service in providing such an amiable introduction.”—The Sunday Telegraph “Norwich tells [Sicily’s] long, sad but fascinating story with sympathy and brio.”—Literary Review

Download or read book The Dangerously Truthful Diary of a Sicilian Housewife written by Veronica Di Grigoli and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015-07-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When career-girl Veronica flies to Sicily for a friend's wedding, she accidentally falls in love with one of the groom's three-hundred cousins. A year later she has given up her job, house and friends, and is planning her own wedding with her Latin Lover in the shimmering heat of Sicily.

Download or read book Palermo City of Kings written by Jeremy Dummett and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-04-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Palermo - the capital of Sicily - is a destination with a difference. The city is a treasure trove of original monuments and works of art, combined with architecture of grand proportions. Yet it also has a grittier side, shown by the continuing influence of the mafia. Jeremy Dummett here provides a concise overview of Palermo's eventful history, together with a survey of its most important monuments and sites. He looks at the influences of the city's various ancient rulers - the Phoenicians, Romans, Arabs and Normans - as well as its more recent incarnation as part of the Italian state. In addition to being an essential companion for visitors to Palermo, this book can be equally enjoyed as a standalone history of the city and its place at the heart of Sicily.

Download or read book Midnight In Sicily written by Peter Robb and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2014-08-05 with total page 484 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year A New York Public Library Best Book of the Year From the author of M and A Death in Brazil comes Midnight in Sicily. South of mainland Italy lies the island of Sicily, home to an ancient culture that--with its stark landscapes, glorious coastlines, and extraordinary treasure troves of art and archeology--has seduced travelers for centuries. But at the heart of the island's rare beauty is a network of violence and corruption that reaches into every corner of Sicilian life: Cosa Nostra, the Mafia. Peter Robb lived in southern Italy for over fourteen years and recounts its sensuous pleasures, its literature, politics, art, and crimes.

Download or read book Rebels and Mafiosi written by James Fentress and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For centuries, Sicilian "men of honor" have fought the controls of government. Between 1820 and 1860, rebellions shook the island as these men joined with Sicily's intellectuals in the struggle for independence from the Bourbon Kingdom of Naples. This lively account—the first to locate the emergence and evolution of the mafia in historical perspective—describes how those rebellions led to the birth of the modern mafia and traces the increasing influence of organized crime on the island. The alliance between two classes of Sicilians, James Fentress shows, made possible both the revolution and the mafia. Militancy in the ranks of the revolution taught men of honor how to organize politically. Communities then resisted the demands of central government by devising alternative controls through a network of local groups—the mafia cosche.Fentress tells his operatic story of honor and crime from the viewpoint of the Sicilians, and in particular of the great city of Palermo—from Garibaldi's historic arrival in 1860 to the spectacular mafia trials around the turn of the century. Drawing on police archives, trial records, contemporary journalism, and government reports, he describes how enduring political power plus a (richly deserved) reputation for violence helped the mafia secure covert relationships with groups that publicly denounced them. These contacts still protect today's mafiosi from Rome's efforts to eradicate the organization. The history of the mafia is indeed, Fentress shows, the history of Sicily.

Download or read book The Invention of Sicily written by Jamie Mackay and published by Verso Books. This book was released on 2021-07-13 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether you’re vacationing in Italy or simply an armchair traveler, this guide to the Mediterranean island of Sicily is a dazzling introduction to the region’s rich 3,000-year history and culture. A rich and fascinating cultural history of the Mediterranean’s enigmatic heart Sicily is at the crossroads of the Mediterranean, and for over 2000 years has been the gateway between Europe, Africa and the East. It has long been seen as the frontier between Western Civilization and the rest, but never definitively part of either. Despite being conquered by empires—Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Hapsburg Spain—it remains uniquely apart. The island’s story maps a mosaic that mixes the story of myth and wars, maritime empires and reckless crusades, and a people who refuse to be ruled. In this riveting, rich history Jamie Mackay peels away the layers of this most mysterious of islands. This story finds its origins in ancient myth but has been reinventing itself across centuries: in conquest and resistance. Inseparable from these political and social developments are the artefacts of the nation’s cultural patrimony—ancient amphitheaters, Arab gardens, Baroque Cathedrals, as well as great literature such as Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s masterpiece The Leopard, and the novels and plays of Luigi Pirandello. In its modern era, Sicily has been the site of revolution, Cosa Nostra and, in the twenty-first century, the epicenter of the refugee crisis.

Download or read book Transactions of the Manchester Goethe Society 1886 1893 written by Manchester Goethe Society and published by . This book was released on 1894 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book On Persephone s Island written by Mary Taylor Simeti and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-12-08 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An American woman residing in Sicily for the past twenty years portrays the Sicilian landscape and customs--both rural and urban--from the perspectives of both a "foreigner" and a resident.

Download or read book Palermo Travel Guide written by Daniel Windsor and published by Interactive Media Licensing. This book was released on 2024-06-12 with total page 23 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Palermo, the capital city of Sicily, is a place where history whispers from every corner and where vibrant culture dances through its streets. Nestled on the northern coast of this Mediterranean island, Palermo stands as a testament to the rich tapestry of influences that have shaped its identity over millennia. From ancient ruins to medieval palaces, bustling markets to tranquil gardens, Palermo offers a captivating blend of the old and the new, the familiar and the exotic. To truly understand Palermo, one must delve into its past. The city's history is a mosaic of civilizations that have left their mark, from the Phoenicians and Greeks to the Arabs and Normans. Each culture has contributed to Palermo's architectural wonders, culinary delights, and cultural traditions, creating a unique fusion that is unmistakably Sicilian. One of the most iconic landmarks of Palermo is the Norman Palace, a testament to the island's medieval past. Built in the 9th century by the Arab rulers of Sicily, the palace was later expanded by the Norman kings who conquered the island. Today, it houses the Palazzo dei Normanni, the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly, and the stunning Palatine Chapel, renowned for its exquisite Byzantine mosaics. Palermo's cultural diversity is reflected in its vibrant neighborhoods, each with its own distinct character and charm. From the bustling markets of Ballarò and Vucciria to the tranquil streets of Kalsa and La Loggia, every corner of the city offers a glimpse into Sicilian life. The city's culinary scene is equally diverse, with influences from Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East. Visitors can sample traditional Sicilian dishes such as arancini (rice balls), panelle (chickpea fritters), and sfincione (Sicilian pizza), as well as exotic flavors brought by centuries of trade and conquest. Despite its ancient roots, Palermo is a city that embraces modernity while preserving its heritage. The revitalization of historic neighborhoods, such as La Kalsa and Albergheria, has breathed new life into the city, attracting artists, entrepreneurs, and visitors from around the world. Palermo's cultural calendar is filled with events and festivals that celebrate its diverse heritage, from the Feast of Santa Rosalia to the Arab-Norman Palermo Festival. Whether exploring the city's museums and galleries, wandering through its markets and gardens, or simply soaking up the sun on its sandy beaches, there is something for everyone in Palermo. Palermo is a city of contrasts and contradictions, where ancient history meets modern life, and where tradition mingles with innovation. It is a place that captivates the imagination and leaves a lasting impression on all who visit. So come, immerse yourself in the beauty and charm of Palermo, and discover the magic of Sicily's capital city.

Download or read book Memoir Descriptive of the Resources Inhabitants and Hydrography of Sicily and Its Islands written by William Henry Smyth and published by . This book was released on 1824 with total page 462 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Sicily the New Winter Resort written by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen and published by . This book was released on 1907 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Italian Ways On and Off the Rails from Milan to Palermo written by Tim Parks and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-05-05 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bestselling author of "Italian Neighbors" returns with a wry and revealing portrait of Italian life--by riding its trains.

Download or read book Glimpses of the World a Portfolio of Photographs of the Marvelous Works of God and Man written by John Lawson Stoddard and published by . This book was released on 1899 with total page 560 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Scribners Monthly written by and published by . This book was released on 1880 with total page 978 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Teutonic Order in Italy 1190 1525 written by Kristjan Toomaspoeg and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2024-02-01 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1190 and 1525, the Teutonic Order (the third major military religious order after the Temple and the Hospital) maintained extensive possessions in Italy. This volume examines the history of the Order’s Italian branch, arguing that it served as an intermediary between East and West, as well as North and South. It reflects on the reasons for the Teutonic Order’s success and the persistence of its settlement, particularly its ability to adapt to various and changing political and economic contexts, and its talent in garnering the support of the local population. Not only focusing on political, diplomatic, economic and religious history but also considering the history of art and architecture, spirituality, prosopography and everyday life, this book portrays the Teutonic Order in Italy as an example of medieval coexistence, collaboration and crossing borders. This book will a useful study for scholars interested in Medieval Italy, cross-cultural history and the military religious orders of the medieval period.