Palermo's Cappucin Catacombs: Warning! Nightmare Alert!

We all like to play dress-up, whether as adults—Halloween--or as children, with friends, siblings, playmates, dolls and toys. But what if you could play dress-up with corpses and cadavers, in a special and safe place, as the Cappucin monks did in Palermo, not all that long ago?! What a wondersome thing! And so it has been preserved, the Cappucin Catacombs, in some rightly dead part of the city, to which we ventured in the waning hours of our first day in the capital city. We had driven over through the miles and miles of tunnels and bridges to Palermo on May 12, after having taken a rest day May 11, after our Aeolian cruise. We found the appointed sosta, somewhere in the way west of Palermo, a truly chaotic city, on bus route 107. In the few hours of remaining daylight, we (Vicki) thought it would be really cool to see the dressed-up corpses and cadavers. I will not speculate upon the origin of this idea except to note that a recent Rickie Stevie blog post had dealt with the Cappucin Catacombs. He is working on a guide to Sicily. Soon, millions of American tourists will have this same wondersome experience! What a wondersome thought!

Aeolian Cruise, 4: Stromboli By Night

And now, the exciting conclusion of our Aeolian cruise...

Walking by a very busy pizzaria...these guys were doing an assembly-line act
that would have made Enrico Fordo proud; someday I'll post the video to my
YouTube channel

Street scene; not pictured, alas, are the many interesting and 
tasteful little shoppes; we did stimulate the local economy 
modestly

Carabinieri station

Squad car

The local wine is Malvasia; the "Mal" part is
readily understandable

Vicki wisely opted for the chocolate and ice cream

I'll spare you the next barrage of sunset pix

Staircase from the sea up to the light-house

There, atop the island

Last view of the town

The weather had been gorgeous all day, throughout the trip; but as the sun
went down, thick clouds appeared over the volcano; note the lava flows on
the right side of the mountain

The highlight of the cruise is being able to see the eruptions and fireworks
and lava and such

Alas, it was not to be for us that night; the boat cruised up and down, waiting
for a break

The best we saw was a bit of an orange glow

Thus

It was a great trip, one of our best excursions ever, despite the fact we didn't
get to see anything like...

This

Aeolian Cruise, 3: Stromboli

The boat put in for about 3 hours on Stromboli, more time for walking, exploring, shopping, eating, drinking. The younger and more adventurous might even have walked some ways toward the summit or caldera. The island has accommodations and a variety of hiking and lava-viewing trails. Next life.

There are perhaps a couple hundred residents

Landing at Stromboli

Our walk basically took us along the southwest shoreline, up
into the town, and then back to the port

Black sand beach; of course

Helpful reminder

Lots of locally-sourced building materials on the island; and more arriving
every day

Another island and famous light-house

Town view

Under the volcano

Us, there; under Stromboli

Transportation on the island includes scooters, tuk-tuks, and golf carts

Top of the hill

Great tile