TUNISIA, DAY 3: TUNIS - THE BARDO MUSEUM

 March 22, 2024

On our way to our next destination, we passed by the Tunisian Parliament building.  Its style really seems to fit what we had seen of the country. I love it.

Somewhere near there we picked up our guide Feker's cousin (on the right next to Stan, below):

There are multiple gates to the old town/medina of Tunis still standing, and this is one of them: the Bab Saadoun gate, first constructed as one arch in 1350 and reconstructed in 1881 with three arches to better handle the traffic. The wall it was once part of is gone, but the gate remains as the central feature of a modern roundabout.

Wikipedia has a picture of what it looked like with one arch in 1880:

. . . and another photo from 1940 showing what it looked like when the wall was still there.

SICILY: CEFALU CATHEDRAL AND BACK TO THE AIRPORT

 March 18, 2024

Our last stop in Sicily was Cefalù, a coastal city about an hour and a half from Palermo. It has a population of about 14,000 and is a major tourist destination.

We were VERY lucky to find a parking lot with an open spot within walking distance of the old (aka touristy) part of town, and it only cost 1€! We came out of the parking lot by this building that I think was a school.  I love the murals and the words Vola Con Me (Fly with me).

As we walked into town, we passed this monument honoring the locals who perished in World War I.

The narrow, shop-lined street reminds me of Taormina, which we had visited two days prior.

SICILY: MONREALE AND PALERMO CATHEDRALS

March 17, 2024

We lucked out in finding a parking space just a few blocks from the Monreale Cathedral, which was about a 30-minute drive from Palermo proper but still part of the metropolitan area.

I love how the neighborhoods are built up around these gems of churches in Europe, as if the church is just part of the neighborhood.

Hey, there's another one of the famous Sicilian pine cones, this one over a foot tall and a decoration at an outdoor cafe.

The Cathedral was built between 1174 and 1182 as the result of a sleepy king. William II of Sicily had fallen asleep under a carob tree near here, and in a dream the Holy Virgin told him to build a church on that spot. When the carob tree was removed so the church could be built, a cache of gold coins was found among the roots and used to finance the church. What a great story!

The official name of this church is the Chapel of San Castrense di Monreale. Saint Castrense is the patron saint of Monreale. William II was given his relic as a wedding gift, and he laid it under the high altar of the cathedral.

Like the Palatine Chapel we had just visited, the church is an amalgamation of Norman, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque styles.  It is an earlier, larger, and somewhat lesser version of the Palatine Chapel, which was based on the design of this church. Like the Palatine Chapel, this cathedral is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.

SICILY: PALERMO'S ROYAL PALACE AND PALATINE CHAPEL

 March 17, 2024

We set off for Palermo around 9:00 AM in our very cramped VW Golf. 

It was supposed to be a 2.5 hour drive, but we put the wrong destination in our phone's maps app, and we ended up off track. We lost about 40 minutes, but we still made it on time to our first destination of the day, the Royal Palace of Palermo, where we had timed-entry tickets to the Palatine Chapel.

The Palatine Chapel is inside the Royal Palace (aka Norman Palace of Palermo), which was the home of the Sicilian kings and/or seat of the government until 1946. Since then it has been the seat of the Sicilian Regional Assembly. It is the oldest royal residence in all of Europe and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The palace dates back to the 9th century, although it had a major makeover in the 12th century. The oldest part of the current structure is on the right end, below.

Roger II of Sicily, also known as Roger the Norman, was the first king of Sicily from 1130 until 1154 and is considered the founder of the Kingdom of Sicily, unifying the Norman conquests in southern Italy, Sicily, and Malta under his rule. He was known for practicing tolerance for the variety of ethnicities and cultures that lived in his realm. An interesting fact about Roger II: He married three times and had nine legitimate children and at least five known illegitimate children.

One of his longest-lasting accomplishments was the building of a spectacular chapel inside the above palace. It was the primary reason we were hurrying to Palermo. 

The Palatine Chapel (or Cappella Palatina in Italian) is perhaps the most beautiful single room I have entered anywhere in the world. Commissioned by Roger II in 1132, it took eight years to build and is a unique blend of Norman, Byzantine, classical, and Arab architecture. 

The door to the inside of the chapel is rather inconspicuous compared to the ornate colonnade that surrounds the inner courtyard of the palace. 

The wooden beams of the ceiling, brick arches, and Corinthian columns are beautiful, but what really distinguishes the entrance and the interior are the mosaics.

ITALY: POMPEII

 March 15, 2024

One of the reasons we started our trip in Naples was because we wanted to visit the ancient city of Pompeii, the legendary city covered by ash for centuries before being discovered. To get to Pompeii from Naples, we took a train ride of about 40 minutes. 

We were hoping to find a place to eat between the Pompeii station and the ruins. No problem. There was a line-up of five or six restaurants along the road that led to the main entry gate for the ruins. We chose a place with friendly staff, and (ironically, as this was a major tourist area) I had one of the better meals of the trip: gnocchi with cheese sauce and a wonderful pizza I shared with Bob.

We met up with our guide Dario, an archaeologist who gives tours of the site, and began a three-hour walk through what used to be a wealthy town of somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 people before it was buried in 13 to 20 feet of volcanic ash by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

The ruins were discovered in the late 16th century, but excavation didn't begin until 1750, over 150 years later. In 1763, during the excavations, an inscription was found that identified the site as Pompeii.

Our initial impression on walking in was already WOW!  The UNESCO article on this site and its companion site Herculaneum (which my sister and BIL visited on the day they arrived before we got there) notes, "Pompeii and Herculaneum are the only Roman cities ruins preserved in such an exceptional way and have no parallels in integrity and extent in the world. [They] provide a full picture of Roman life from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD through the urban, architectural, decorative and daily life aspects that have been preserved."

WASHINGTON, D.C.: CATHEDRAL OF ST. MATTHEW THE APOSTLE

We were driving/wandering around the streets of Washington, D.C., on our way back to our hotel when Bob suddenly threw on the brakes. "I think we just passed the St. Matthew Cathedral!" he said.

"Huh?" I replied, having NO idea what he was talking about.

We drove around the block, verified that it was indeed St. Matthew's, and found a parking spot.

Bob has a way of "happening upon" interesting places in the most amazing way.

Construction of this Romanesque Revival cathedral began in 1893, and although the first mass was held in 1898, construction wasn't completed until 1913, at which time the church was dedicated. 

St. Matthew, who was a tax collector, is appropriately the patron saint of civil servants. St. Matthew's Cathedral honors those who serve in city, state, and national governments and in the many international organizations in the D.C. area. Wedged into a space among other buildings, the cathedral is suprisingly spacious, with a seating capacity of 1,200.

WASHINGTON, D.C.: THE NATIONAL CATHEDRAL

Day two in Washington, D.C., was Mother's Day, and we decided to spend the morning in an unusual way--attending a service at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, more commonly known as the "National Cathedral." Since we had been running on empty on our first day, we decided to sleep in and catch the 11:15 service.

The National Cathedral isn't a non-denominational church as we had expected, but an Episcopalian Cathedral. It was granted a charter by Congress in 1891, was begun in 1907, and was completed in 1990. Congress has designated it as the "National House of Prayer." The funerals for Presidents Eisenhower, Reagan, and Ford were held at the National Cathedral, which is the sixth largest cathedral in the world and the second largest in the United States, topped only by the St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City.

It's difficult to capture the size of the building (the central tower is 301 feet tall) with just one photo, but maybe five will convey its enormity:

Every December I attend a Christmas program at the local university that is basically an Episcopalian service (minus the eucharist), so the service at the National Cathedral felt familiar--lots of pageantry and processionals, lots of anthem singing, some reading and response, lots of up and down, etc.