2022’s fireworks in Valencia, midnight on March 15 In addition to the wonderful colors, these presentations feature crescendos of chest pounding sound. Each day at 2:00 there is a mascleta, with little color and 8 minutes of blasts with a superb crescendo.
Fallas is Valencia’s annual street festival featuring thousands of fabulous sculptures up to 5 stories in height, such as these from the El Pilar Fallas. Each sculpture, these days made using light weight foam over a wood frame, is created by a local organization, also called a Fallas. They raise money from a variety of sources. These large sculptures require funds in the six figures. They are up for 4-5 days then burned, and work is begun on the following years’ sculptures.
The festival also features fabulous fireworks. See photos in the next post.
Malaga has a large number of very good museums. We visited two on the Tuesday we arrived from Valencia, just a 45 minute flight from Valencia for the astounding price of 9 euros.
The Museo Automovilístico de Málaga has a large collection of expertly restored cars, and in an unusual twist, many are accompanied by fashions from the era. The owner of this private museum joined us for part of our visit, taking us beyond the ropes so we were able to get a close view of the interiors of several cars.
He told us he is looking for a new home, and is considering a move to Brooklyn, NY. He complains about the lack of government support in Malaga, and not enough visitors. He’s got a superb collection, the restorations done in his home country of Portugal.
In addition to the cars he’s exhibiting a find collection of high fashion, many of which match up with the cars they are displayed next to.
The Russian State Museum http://en.rusmuseum.ru/about/malaga/ has its main branch in St. Petersburg. We had the immense pleasure of visiting it during our month there. The branch is across the plaza from the car museum, housed in an old tobacco plant. The collection on the day of our visit lacked many of the better pieces to be found in St. Petersburg but still worth a visit. Here are two of the pieces I found more interesting.
The next day we hit a few more museums. First it was the Contemporary Art Museum, which sits along the river, entrance free amazingly enough.
Then we walked through the lovely old town, a pedestrian zone almost exclusively, to the Picasso Museum. Picasso was born here, but moved on to Paris in his early 20’s. There were something in excess of 100 of his paintings and drawings, whose unmistakable style which most people have seen before if they have seen any of his works at all. I found this one to be of greater interest than the others because the photo of the model, his wife at the time, Francoise Gilot, is posted with the painting. He did not do any drawing or painting as she posed for him. He stared for a good while and then told her she would not have to pose again. Take a look.
After a donor kabab and a bit of a rest we walked to the Museo del Vidrio y Cristal de Málaga https://www.museovidrioycristalmalaga.com/. We started the obligatory guided tour in Spanish with an expressive Spanish woman who took us up the stairs to start viewing some of the 3000+ pieces plus the furnishings of this private house. She explained that there are studio pieces and art pieces. The former is both designed and executed by the artist. Art pieces are those where the artist designs the piece but it is executed by a glass studio.
Please visit their website for additional images.
Founded by the Phonecians on what we now call the Guadalmedina River, Málaga is now home to the Picasso Museum and Museo Casa Natal (where he was born), the City Museum, the excellent car museum Museo Automovilístico de Málaga, the CAC (Contemporary Art), a branch of the Russian State Museum, Museo del Vidrio y Cristal de Málaga (Museum of Glass and Crystal) and more. There’s a Roman era theater, Moorish ruins and the amazing artifacts on display at the Museo del Patrimonio Municipal which also has a good art collection. Millions of visitors come each year to enjoy vacations on the Costa del Sol.
Here are a few examples of what’s on display at the Museo del Patrimonio:
The Cathedral of Malaga was built between 1528 and 1782 in the Renaissance style with many Baroque features as well. Its tower is 84 meters/276′ high.
All of these are available for purchase. Easiest way to make arrangements is to contact me at info@garyjkirkpatrick.com Prices range from $150-350 for these. Size A4, approximately 8.5″ x 11″
Palermo
Palermo
The route from Selinunte to Palermo takes you past the turn off to my ancestral town of Partanna. I looked twice at the sign as we went by, as if to verify that it in fact exists and my past in part lies here. After that you drive past large and steep mountains along the coast, near the airport and elsewhere. Flat areas lead up to them so you get great views of their breadth and number, not just the height.
The first time I drove in Palermo was back in the 90’s. We rented a car in Luxembourg, driving south to Genoa. I think by then I’d learned that Colombus was actually Colombo, born in this very coastal city, and not Spanish. We went through the Alps to get there, descending to the city through long tunnels on well engineered highways. The Italians do know a lot about road building. We descended to the port to take the ferry to Sicily. We passed Corsica and Sardinia along the way, the latter far off the starboard, and then some coastal islands on the Sicilian coast. I imagined seeing Ulysses float by, tied to the mast. There was no Ulysses on this drive, but a Garibaldi or two instead, with notes of The Leopard floating around there somewhere. Sicily rolls out before us, changed much yet there is much the same.
Once in town we easily found our apartment, right across from Teatro Politeama Garibaldi, home of the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, which played in the plaza across the street the next evening. The apartment is in an old building – there are many thousands of those in Palermo. We had a code to get in the main entrance, where we retrieved the key. The apartment is just a floor or two up. There’s an old elevator that stopped a half floor above the apartment door. Once inside we could see that the apartment was built in two buildings, unless strange layouts and a living room on a lower level are somehow typical. The kitchen is one butt wide, stuck in a closet along the hallway.
There’s a bronze four horse chariot at the Teatro entrance, and three bass reliefs. The huge plaza in front affords a broad view of the impressive structure. Cross it and you are on Liberta, the main drag that’s now a pedestrian zone. It has many posh shops and eateries galore. In this area you find several churches that house amazing works of art. You come to Cuatro Canti – Four Corners. Up the hill is the Cathedral with its impressive mosaics.
Perhaps the most impressive art is to be found in Chiesa Gesu ( Gesu means Jesuit), and not just impressive compared to other churches, but it holds its own to any other structure anywhere, even St Peter’s in Rome. Innumerable Ph.D. dissertations are packed into this Baroque structure completed in 1636, measuring a mere 72.10 m compared to St. Peter’s 212m in length.
It suddenly struck me as equally astounding as the art in Gesu is the complexity of these constructions projects. You have building materials to collect, stone workers to organize, artists to hire and train as well as their materials to find and transport. All of this has to be financed, with monies collected and disbursed. No doubt there were lots of problems, some imposed by nature and others by clever crooks, but here it is today still with us, as astounding as ever.
Santa Caterina is a veritable art museum for Baroque painters as well as sculptors, and a great bakery to boot, as you find out as you wait in the cloister for the numbers of visitors to subside to safe levels. Lots of pistachio based goodies.
While our friends were still with us we had some delightful meals as well as some less so. We went to one of our favorite local places. It had declined compared to two years. The same with another we went to after it was just the two of us left. Similarly the famous street market, the Mercato della Vucciria, is all but gone, a victim of the pandemic.
By that time we were tiring of Sicilian food, which had become repetitive. We found a Roman restaurant, named Cacio and Pepe. Cacio and pepe is one of the four truly Roman pasta dishes, served in almost every restaurant in its home city. The food and service at Cacio and Pepe was so good we returned for the final night out for the six of us. Antipasto came out but we had to wait for the wine, which was white and still very warm. They offered to chill it at the table. I turned down the bottle. On a warm night like this one it would probably take 20 minutes to chill a bottle of very warm wine and in the meantime we already had our antipasti. I had them bring another. It was well chilled. Otherwise it was a delightful experience, outdoors in an attractive setting on a side street off Liberta.
The next day our friends departed by train and plane. After checking into a strange little basement apartment we went to the Regional Archaeological Museum Antonino Salinas. We went there in 2019 during our month long sojourn. Immediately I regretted not taking our friends, for it contains many superb items collected from Selinunte.
My second regret was not taking them to see more of Serpotta. You can not see his work elsewhere. See some of his superb sculptures, mostly in plaster, see photos and video on my post: https://garyjkirkpatrick.com/the-heights-of-serpotas-art-the-oratorio-santissimo-rosario-in-santa-cita/
From the Valli dei Templi we drove to the town of Marinella di Selinunte. The town as well as the archaeological site on its door step sit on the coast. We were looking for a B and B called Arcos. After a few hours drive from Agrigento through some lovely scenery we found the street but were unable to find the house. We called while idling in the parking lot at the hotel at the end of the road. I spoke to him but had a hard time understanding. He may have a heavy Sicilian accent, to which I am not accustomed, or he was speaking Sicilian, which even some native Italians have trouble deciphering. We retraced our steps and when we got to the stop light, I told him we were at the ‘semaforo.’ That’s Spanish for stop light. Perhaps it is Italian or Sicilian as well as he then knew where we were, and said he’d come out to the street. We turned around again. There he was a few hundred meters away. We saw that the house had no number, that there is indeed an arch, albeit to nowhere, but it sits behind the gate, invisible from the road. So how are you supposed to find the place? Why would he not resolve the problem- could it have something to do with legal requirements? Italians are notable for the ways in which they avoid taxation, so I would not be surprised that this was exactly the case, as later he refused to provide a receipt for the night.
It’s a lovely place our elderly host has although there’s just one bathroom for the 7 of us. He had to use the same one, thus 7 and not 6, unless he had a facility aside from the one in the house.
As we were unloading our bags in the rooms he told me that he could not find one of the remote control for the air conditioning in one of the rooms. We decided to take that room. I thought that by nightfall it would be cool enough. That proved to be true. Also this way we would not worry about our friends being unable to sleep.
He continued looking around for the remote control. In the process he came back into the room. He asked to enter but before I could say no, he came in. I had no clothes on. Not a huge deal. But a minute later he came in again, without even knocking. I was rather miffed. Then not but five minutes later one of our friends walked in without knocking, as the door was open to allow some air to circulate. I was starting to have a difficult day.
Dinner that night was in town. There were more challenges to come. We managed to drive in the wrong way on a one way street, turned around by people sitting on their front porch facing the port. Then we managed to park too far from the port, where we had just been while going the wrong way, forcing our somewhat hobbled compatriot to walk much farther than necessary. At least it was downhill.
The streets along the way were hacked into the hillside in a maze-like fashion. The route to the sea was not marked. We had to ask a woman who was sitting with neighbors outside in the evening’s cool. She gave us perfect instructions. Keep going down.
We settled on a restaurant in the public square when we finally got there, eating and drinking for an hour or so. As we sat there a priest started to conduct a mass nearby, outdoors and in front of a sort of manger. A small crowd gathered. Perhaps it was a blessing of the fish or some such rather than an ordinary ‘culto.’ At any rate what he was doing could serve for any run of the mill hocus pocus.
Afterwards we went to a nearby restaurant run by a local. His family has had this place for years. He’d spent some time in Australia, spoking English quite well. Good typical Sicilian dishes on a lovely Sicilian coast line night that cooled nicely as the sun set.
The next morning we came to a breakfast table set just outside the ample kitchen. There was coffee – the Italian version, not the American, our host pointed out. It’s a difficult adjustment for people accustomed to a beverage that has a lot more water in it and is not roasted to such a black color. As happened the day before each person had a pastry stuffed with ricotta, a very Sicilian breakfast. Its a far cry from, say, a Dutch breakfast, with hearty bread and slices of cheese and various meats.
The archaeological park is just a few minutes drive. It’s large. On our last visit we were deterred from a complete visit by the distances, so we all selected to take the transportation on offer. You have to walk to the small museum to board, passing by Temple E, one of five temples here. The museum does not have much to offer as almost all the goodies are in the The Antonino Salinas Regional Archeological Museum in Palermo, of which more anon. On our last visit, just two years ago, there was an excellent video that played upon the Greek columns they erected in the large hall, and on the wall behind. This was no longer available, a major disappointment.
Selinunte was an ancient Greek city. There were some 30,000 people at its peak around 490 BCE. There were also Phonecians and native Sicilians in the area. We know quite a bit of its history. Check out the wiki at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selinunte
The Acropolis is at the far side of the park overlooking the sea, a gorgeous location for a temple or any other structure.
Our next stop was Palermo. We have a place near one of the main music halls. It’s a beautiful ride. Our place was very easy to find.
I dropped the car off at the rental agency and returned to explore our abode for the next few days. Apparently it stretched between two buildings judging by all the ups and downs in such a comparatively small space. The kitchen is in what must have been a closet. It might have been an afterthought. Other than a microwave it had all the basics. The basics were not in great shape. The moca pot’s handle was broken. The teflon on the pan had been scratched off. These and a few other things would be inexpensive improvements yet our friendly host hadn’t bothered. Soon we were out and about in this busy, friendly and down in the heels ancient city on the sea.
This is near the Acropolis at the Selinunte Archaeological Park, the largest archaeology zone in Europe.
The Valli dei Templi sits upon a hill, not a valley. You can take a taxi to the top and walk down through the ruins. We walking in the past under the bright sunshine of a mid-September with temperatures around 30c /86f. What you find here are the best ruins of Ancient Greece, aside perhaps from the Acropolis in Athens, but here there are more of them. As for recovered art, there is none here. The Antonino Salinas Regional Archeological Museum in Palermo has a superb collection of what was similar to what was here , but from Selinunte, about which a post is to follow, while Athens has a fabulous museum at the foot of the Acropolis.
It’s reasonable to wonder why the ancients built so many large structures in a such small area. It’s just 500 meters/1600 feet or so from the entrance to the exit. Nor would one think that the local population was so large that it would require so many places of worship. I think the answer likely lies in their motivations. They were polytheists. To honor gods who performed distinct duties and were each capable of causing havoc if they were displeased with their subjects they would need a temple dedicated to each of those whom they considered a danger on the one hand and a formidable ally on the other. One would need to be careful not to sleight any of them by providing an inferior structure let alone none at all.
I can imagine the crowds on special days when priests would make a sacrifice to this or that god or gods. After the ritual killing there might have been a large barbecue. Most everyone in Agrigento and environs would have turned out. It could have been quite the feast- the gods don’t actually need to eat, apparently, they just need to have their ego stroked. I seriously doubt they just discarded the dead animals. Fire up the barby, Giuseppe!
The Temple of Concordia is the best preserved, having been used as a church starting in the 6th century, 1000 years after its construction, in use until 1785, over 2000 years. Aside from the Pantheon perched on the Acropolis in Athens it is the best preserved building of ancient Greece. As with the Pantheon in Athens, this building was partially reconstructed. Like most Greek temples, it is east-west oriented.
Here’s a website with additional information https://www.hisour.com/temple-of-concordia-agrigento-valley-of-the-temples-55964/
The Temple of Juno dates from the 5th century BC, set afire and heavily damaged by the Carthaginians.
The Temple of Hercules is the oldest temple. It was destroyed by an earthquake. There are eight columns left.
Temple of Zeus (480 BC) celebrated the city-state’s victory over Carthage. The Temple of Castor and Pollux has only four columns remaining.
The Temple of Hephaestus is from the 5th century BCE while the Temple of Asclepius was a special destination for those looking for cures for ailments.
The official website of the archaeological site is https://www.parcovalledeitempli.it/en/