So, the two of us could not be more stellar examples of the resilience of human consciousness. Down to breakfast at eight o’clock, and parked and through the gate at Villa Romana del Casale by 9:15. This 3^rd century Roman hunting lodge has the most extensive and magnificent mosaic floors in the world. The site was covered by a mudslide and largely forgotten for centuries, then sporadically excavated since the 1800s. Beginning in the 1950s, the splendid art was brought to light, one room after another.

Alice isn’t fully awake, but her orienteering skills are unimpeded. Though we follow a bus with big load of evil through the gate, we are but the third car in the parking lot. I have been warned about the attraction this place has for buses. Plus, personal experience has shown that the early bird often gets an experience unencumbered by jabbering assholes. And because it’s Sunday, the site is free.

The building’s foundation has been partially enclosed, protecting the floors from the elements. It can snow in Sicily: we’ve seen traffic signs with a tire and two snowflakes, so we know. Wandering along the catwalks, deciphering the goofily translated documentation, and peering at antic or ferocious animals, frolicking putti, and kaleidoscopic geometries, we butt into the slowpoke group of tourists getting the English-language lowdown from a voluble Sicilian lady. We tag along, semi-unobtrusively. Sponge-like we absorb info we’ll likely forget in 90 minutes. The building’s centerpiece, the long Corridor of the Great Hunt depicts the capture and transport of wild beasts; African critters on one half and Indian on the other, in other words, giraffes and lions, elephants and tigers, in minute and careful detail. The drama and sheer narrative drive of the images is remarkable and nearly impossible to leave.

The parking lot is full when we amble back to the car. With a Coke and a croissant in hand, we are ready to tackle anything. Morgantina is a dozen kilometers away. The ancient Greek town was at its peak during the time of Christ and was the last community in Sicily to fall to the Romans in 211. It’s situated high on a long ridge and suggests what a large agricultural center might look like. Grass and wildflowers cover the site, giving it a feeling of lushness and life. Golden stone set in green under a gray Sicilian sky.

Morgantina’s fame rests on its spectacular treasures, looted in the 1970s and 80s and recently repatriated after much bickering. These include a hoard of sixteen pieces of gilded silver and three acroliths of goddesses. And, wouldn’t you know it, the silver and two of the goddesses have gone on tour. They won’t be at the Museo Archeologico in Aidone. The larger than life statue of Persephone or perhaps Demeter is still there and still commanding. An acrolith, by the way, is a statue whose head and arms are marble, while the corpus is wood or limestone. The Met in New York had purchased the silver hoard and for some reason, it has returned for a visit. Disappointed, yes, but there’s a story here.

Aidone seems pretty deserted this Sunday afternoon, but when we order a slice of pizza and an espresso at a café, the couple with last night’s caterwauling baby are sitting right next to us. This compels us to fixate on the mysteries of Italian television and eat a kilo of cookies. It’s time to admit that each of us is whipped, done in by travel.

Alice guides us to Villa Trigona the back way. “The way we were supposed to go yesterday, Dad.” It requires the traversing of a fifty-yard puddle. We generate a little, muddy Fiat wake. There’s a fucking car behind, so onward. Up to our gunwales!

We enjoy another excellent rustic meal with the grumpy, old people from Hoboken on one side and the sweet newlyweds from London on the other. The crazed baby seems to have exhausted its repetoire. Pray for us.

Today’s major question is: Do we stop in Enna on the way to Piazza Armerina? Well, no. We’ve a three-hour majestic journey ahead of us and downtime feels more necessary than seeing another fucking beautiful thing/building/vista. So, after a scramble along the rocks in front of Cefalu’s seawall and fortified with strange pizza, we call for the car and hie our bunny asses outta there.

According to Google and her Maps, the route follows a four-lane motorway for the bulk of the way, though there appears to be a kerfuffle somewhere midway, a detour. The landscape varies constantly and abruptly, from cliff-hugging stark ruggedness to rich patchwork farmland adorned with wind turbines. Neither Alice nor I can fathom what the occasional traffic sign of a windsock means, but whoever shouts “Windsock!” first, wins. When we saw a real fucking windsock fluttering on the shoulder of the road, we could only glance at one another and whisper – ‘windsock.’

The detour commences. This is another case of Everything Happens For No Reason. We veer into a village for no reason, double back on ourselves incomprehensibly, speed across a one-lane metal bridge disregarding the stoplight, and, sweet Jesus, where’s the escape velocity incline? Ahhhhh. Up we go! The road has been scored for traction purposes. It doesn’t appear to deviate from a straightaway, yet it must either crest somewhere above or disappear into the clouds on its way to infinitum. Finally, the foolishness ends. We may have altitude sickness to look forward to, but at least we didn’t run out of gas, I mean, benzina.

Enna passes us by, with its formidable Lombard castle looking impregnable and far away. Alice manoeuvres us through Piazza Armerina to our respite for the next two nights – Villa Trigona, a rustic country inn. They are cordial and everything couldn’t be more accommodating. Until the baby begins to cry and carry on. In the late afternoon, tossing on my bed, I smell the reassurance of homecooking. For 25 euros, they’ll serve dinner. We enlist.

At dinner, we chat with a bashful married couple from England, the first people other than ourselves that we’ve spoken with. The meal seems endless and satisfies completely. I bid Alice goodnight. The baby. Its wailing intensifies and reverberates, bouncing off the tile floors and stucco walls. It begins to feel like its happening right in my room. The crying starts. The crying stops. The crying starts. The TV mumbles. Finally, I play into the hands of exhaustion.

I have to check to see that the Fiat is still there, still intact, out in plain sight in the Sicilian night. I fret, okay? The Palazzo dei Normanni lies at the opposite end of Via Vittorio Emanuele at the highest point of the old city. It served as the royal palace during the brief Norman rule. The Normans conquered Sicily in 1072, just six years after dealing decisively with the English. One hundred years later, they were gone. Palermo’s crown jewel, and perhaps of all Sicily’s, is the Palatine Chapel, built by Roger II (William II’s granddad) in a fantastic amalgam of Arab, Norman, and Byzantine styles.

Along the way, we must pay homage to the Fountain of Shame, because it is so grand and so silly. A couple hundred yards further on, a great square opens in front of the Palermo’s Cathedral, commenced in 1185 by that pain-in-the-ass Walter of the Mill, the guy who prompted the construction of glorious Monreale. It combines elements of many stylistic influences of its time with additions of later eras, but is primarily remarkable for being huge. Kings are buried there, but as we know so well – dead people is free from pain. Alice and I sit and catch our breath.

Further on, the imposing Porto Nuova straddles Via Vittorio Emanuele, built to celebrate a victory over Tunis in the 16^th century. We tiptoe through. The Palazzo dei Normanni is to the right, and typically seems to have no front door. When Ali and I do find the entrance, we’re informed that the Cappella Palatina will be closed until 12:30. Tickets are bought nevertheless, because we’re here and because so what. In minutes we discover the reason: a bride. All is well. In the meantime, we can examine the Royal Apartments, which turn out to be a series of stiff ceremonial rooms. The Sicilian legislative assembly meets there.

Killing time is never efficient. The bookstore holds no charm, so joining the hubbub on the grand staircase becomes our default. Sometime after 12:30, wedding guests begin to depart, and finally, the bride looking transcendent and clutching in one hand what looks like a bunch of asparagus and, in the other, her groom in full military dress with sword. Smiling that on-another-planet newlywed smile, they make their way through the crowd. Spontaneous joyful applause!

Now if you goin’ to the chapel and you’re gonna get meh-eh-arried, the Cappella Palatina would be the one to go to. It is a claustrophobically fabulous, golden chamber, apsed and domed, with biblical vignettes and saints galore, also griffins and lions and peacocks and palms. But it’s a chapel and the milling multitude drains any magic away. A wedding ceremony must have been too too fine.

Our mission in Palermo has been accomplished and the Fiat’s still there, so it’s on to Cefalu. We round a curve to confront the chamber of commerce picture of the town. The twin-spired Norman Cattedral lording over red tiled neighborhoods, while a tremendous headland called La Rocca lords over all. To our amazement and delight a low-arcing rainbow covers the town, from La Rocca over the Duomo, dipping finally into the sea. It is a swath of joy and unphotographable.

Let the games begin. Our designated hotel has off-site parking. Cefalu’s a no-auto zone. We find the parking lot to be gated and are mystified, so maybe if we locate the hotel all will resolve itself. Hotel La Plumeria whizzes (at 3 km/hr) by. I am driving in zona negativo. I barely squeeze by some walls, miraculous turns get made, I plunge down one-way vias the wrong way, fifteen-point turns are accomplished. I’m going to scrap the door or peel off one of the side-view mirrors; I know I am. Finally, back at the parking lot, we call the hotel. Brilliant, fucking brilliant. If you want to know, the access code is 3146 enter. It swings open like the Pearly Fucking Gates will never do. We are shuttled to La Plumeria. Stability becomes a possibility. Take a shower. The sights and sites of Cefalu stay open until seven o’clock.

The Duomo, the Cathedral of Cefalu is mere paces away. Above the apse, a magnificent mosaic depiction of Christ Pantocrator spreads beneficence. This is a common Greek image of Christ the Righteous Judge and the Lover of Mankind, his left hand holds the open Gospel and his right gesturing in a blessing. The nave has recently been shorn of its baroque accretions, which allows the image to fill the great room. I’m an atheist but I can respond to an act of faith as well as anybody. The less said about the attached cloister, the better. And, of course, there was another bride. Before we entered the cathedral Alice and I bore witness to her grand descent to the piazza below. I picked up off the stones a small white mesh bag with the remnants of green and white rice.

Down a narrow street off the cathedral’s piazza we search for Museo Mandralisca, home to one 19th century polymath’s remarkable ‘cabinet of objects.’ Among the various things, the Museo houses one great masterpiece, early Renaissance Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina’s Portrait of a Man. Also in the collection is the funniest piece of Greek painting I’ve ever seen, a redware krater depicting a tuna-monger and an animated fish buyer.

Goodnight.

Today’s a travel day, devoted to getting from the south side of the island to the north. When I was to be traveling with my Arizona friends, this is when we would have parted, at the airport early tomorrow morning. Rather than cancel and rebook when they dropped out and Alice joined, I kept the itinerary. So back to Palermo for a night. This will give us the opportunity to see more of Palermo, for example, the fine antiquities museum with treasures from the ancient sites we’ve just been to. Most particularly, I want to visit the Norman palace and the Palatine Chapel.

Anyway, this is but bullshit rationalization for the semi-unnecessary cross-island schlep. We wake to rain, big fat drops. We set our sights on reaching Mussomeli for lunch. Mussomeli, just a bit off the beaten path, has a striking keep, Castello Manfredonico, perched, there’s no other word, precariously upon an enormous limestone outcropping. The castle is said to be haunted by the ghosts of three sisters who were walled into a small room by their brother when he went off to war. ‘For their own good,’ the story goes. Though he left them with plenty of food and water, he was delayed, and when he returned he found the corpses of the unfortunate women and the half-eaten soles of their shoes. Hell, I’d be pretty haunty, too.

Alice’s guidance is spot on, however, once we’ve turned off the highway, I make a wrong turn and we’re forced to recalibrate. She says we’re good. The Fiat commences twisting upward through a medieval town, forever nameless. “Turn right in no meters,” she barks. I obey, and suddenly we’re catapulting upward at an angle like being strapped to an Atlas rocket. The pavement is cobblestone. I floor it. Escape velocity! Did I just stall out/slip backwards? There’s no time for an ‘uh-oh’. We make it. Ha! A level place at a cross street. But Jesus Christ, another incline? Alice, what? And another. And another. I’m leaning into the steering wheel while Alice has flattened herself against the back of her seat. We’re both hollering, not unlike the Millennium Falcon inside that space worm thing.

Then, as if we’ve broken through cloud cover, we reach the rarefied atmosphere of Mussomeli. The weather’s still grim, but a recommended restaurant should be nearby. Alice has been guiding us here all along. The door’s open, we walk in. I can’t help but believe in whatever mojo has brought us to this restaurant called Divinity. The chef/proprietor looks a bit surprised, probably at our ashen faces. Watching us stare hopelessly at the menu, he suggests spaghetti carbonara. “E insalata mista,” I chime in. It is a perfect meal. Some of the tension slips away.

Before we begin our descent, it is absolutely mandatory to document this fucking castle, which just happens to be closed for a three-hour midday whatever. Done. Please God, not back the way we came. Alice gets us back to terra firma, but not without suffering the nausea that comes from reading a handheld device on hair-raising mountain roads. The rest of the trip spools out calmly, though our highway is a work in progress, forcing us to submit every so often to the Italian version of a flagman, a stoplight.

We cruise into Palermo and down Via Vittorio Emanuele to our hotel, a slick venue. They would park the car for a fee, but suggest a free spot on the embankment. We clean up and meet for a walk to the Museo Archeologico Regionale. Its front door is where its back door should be, plus it’s not really open. Just a few cursory exhibits, as the museum is reimagining its collection. Oh, well. Let’s have dinner and go to sleep. Fuck this day.

We are the Testy Travelers. The bed had no right side.

And Agrigento, the ruin, is a damn confounding site, with three parking lots and daunting changes in elevation. The Via Sacra and its string of temples and necropolises drop over a hundred meters in the course of two kilometers. Neither conventional maps nor new-fangled electronics can make head or fucking tail of this. There’s a parking lot at the top and one at the bottom and a mystery one somewhere near the theoretical museum. I’d like to park at the top and walk down. It seems sensible, and ever more sensible the less achievable it becomes. My ability to communicate to Alice is compromised by my misguided belief in my inner GPS, my impromptu heedlessness on the road, and my inability to speak in complete sentences. Finally we land at the downside lot, not exactly fuming but vibrating. For three euros per person, one can hire a cab to the top of the site. Oh.

Once at the top, we find ourselves at the threshold of the Temple of Giunone (Juno). No one knows for sure to what deity most of these temples were dedicated, but I only have to say, “Giunone,” with conviction. And if I hold the tips of my fingers together and gesture emphatically, I am invincibly declarative. “Giunone.” Juno’s home base in Agrigento surveys fertile countryside and horizonless blue. It is largely intact, meaning the columns and architrave and pediments have been reassembled. The material used is a soft, golden sandstone that emits warmth and light. In the day it was coated with stucco, patches of which remain. There’s quite a bit of milling at the feet of Giunone, but as soon as we embark on our stroll down the Via Sacra the crowd thins out.

Alice and I happily let gravity pull us along. Eroded burial niches punctuate the panorama of the Mediterranean in a picturesque manner as we ease our way along the wide and dusty thoroughfare to the Temple of Concord at the midpoint. We’re starting to find our fellow tourists more interesting than the monuments of the ancient ones. Possible antiquity saturation. It’s not seen-one-seen-‘em-all, but after the tenth temple or so, familiarity, compounded by the absence of any depth of knowledge, renders the experience a little dry. And there’s the usual fixation on lunch. At the lower terminus of the Via, clusters of foundations and column groupings dedicated to the Chthonic deities recharge the imagination. Chthonic is a great word used to denote the gods of the earth, but not in strict opposition to the Olympian crew. Hades – yes. Demeter and Persephone – sort of.

It’s time to go get the car and attempt to find the parking lot at the Museo Archeologico. Up and down, back and forth. At last, Alice’s GPS draws a bead on the parking lot. It’s free. The Museum is filled to the rafters with shards and reassembled items just missing that telling shard. Of special note – in the subterranean numismatic chambers, silver coins featuring the spirit animals of Agrigento, the golden eagle and the river crab, and a gold horde of Roman coins from the Second Punic War (that one), and nearby, a two-story human figure, a telamon, not a caryatid which is load-bearing, that stood between columns of the Temple of (we conjecture) Zeus.

We’re dying here. Gotta find something to eat. There’s a guy waving to us at the lot’s gate, ‘One euro!’ but we bolt without paying and head up the hill where spaghetti lies. Our luck is right on. The Trattoria dei Templi has divine mixed seafood and a rich cavatelli, as well as death-dealing semifreddo pistacchio and sorbetto limone.

Returning to our polished but weird hotel, we discover the busload of Chinese has been replaced by a busload of Germans. Things should quiet down.

Alice and I have developed a morning routine. We set a time and meet for breakfast. I’m usually early, sucking down caffeine and filling my own canoli. After breakfast this morning, we drop our bags at the front desk, call for the Fiat, and go for a walk. From the hotel, it’s a straight shot to the sea, through the triumphal arch built to celebrate Giuseppe Garibaldi’s entry into Marsala, the beginning of his march across Sicily that brought about the unification of Italy.

Part of the reason for Marsala’s impenetrability is because they’ve blocked off a significant portion of the city for pedestrians only. We stroll amiably. Alice remarks on the flocks of old men, either walking and talking, always with the hands clasped behind their backs, or sitting on benches or at cafés discussing animatedly. We reach the sea. A man is opening his merry-go-round with little cars and trucks and fire engines under a canvas canopy. It is called FantasiaLand.

Expulsion from Marsala is accomplished with ease. We motor along a rustic corniche on the edge of the beautiful shallow lagoon of Lo Stagnone where salt extraction has been practiced for millennia. In isolated splendor, Monte San Giuliano rises to the north. Erice is at its summit. Great rows of piles of salt, too white to be clouds, reflect in the blue of the lagoon. Conical windmills with red tiles roofs and wooden sail frames stand at the intersections of enormous rectangular saltpans. They used to pump the seawater into the pans, where it evaporates, leaving the original condiment.

A boat will transport us to an island in the middle where once a great Phoenician/Carthaginian city arose beginning in the 8^th Century BCE. The island was purchased in the late 19^th Century by the Whitaker family of marsala wine fame and excavations begun. The island is flat with fenced-off archeological sites amid vineyards and olive groves. The sun is hot. We will pay for hatlessness. The stony remains are enough to bring the ancient city to life.

A small café offers panini and agua and shade. We indulge. The anchovy and sliced tomato sandwich may be the best meal so far. The boat back to the mainland departs on the half hour, so we decide to see what the museum holds before leaving this fabled isle. Many amphora and tombstones, and an astonishing Greek statue of a youth discovered only in 1979. The young man, carved in white marble, wears a thin pleated garment that gives this ‘giovane’ the sex appeal that nakedness really can’t.

Selinunte, our next stop, was a powerful ancient city from the era when Sicily was more Greek than Greece. Its complete abandonment after Roman times and its distance from other urban areas has meant that, though tumbled down, the ruins weren’t significantly ‘mined’ for its stone. Selinunte is a National Archeological Park and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One great temple has been reassembled and another will begin reconstruction in a few years. The city’s acropolis stands a kilometer away on the other side of a valley from the temples, closer to the bluff that overlooks the Mediterranean. Our imaginations get a workout.

Agrigento, another ancient Greek city, is on tomorrow’s docket. Once more into the Fiat. The Sicilian landscape passes in infinite variety almost as if in a dream. The sky above presents another landscape, one of ever-changing clouds and weather, sweeping across a spectrum of perfect blues. Sometimes the road arcs into the sky on a graceful viaduct. The feeling is like flying. Alice guides us to the evening’s resting place, the Not-So-Hot Hotel.

This automobile is about as responsive as my last boyfriend. The fact that it’s fresh off the showroom floor compounds my exasperation. The dashboard is bright and incomprehensible. It doesn’t have a ‘park’ gear. Its accelerator is a meaningless appendage. Al and I will head out from Palermo this morning, ultimate destination Marsala, a couple hours drive with stops in Monreale and Segesta. This will test the fucking Fiat’s umph. In Texas, Alice drives a Honda Fit. The addition of a vowel in Italy is obviously useless filigree.

I wish we had another day in Palermo, but we’ll be coming back later in the week, due to circuitous planning on my part. Alice is a mighty navigatore, unflappable, but these days a navigatore must be a GPS virtuoso. She brilliantly and independently bought an overseas data plan for a hundred bucks. Her phone now has a direct line to an omniscient deity, so it seems. The convolutions of Palermo’s streets and the populace’s universal resistance to traffic laws or common sense make for one wacky patience-taxing ride, a real test of our potential as a team. Once we have spun out of the gravitational pull of the city, the journey becomes less hectic. “We follow this for the 28 kilometers.” Urbanity gives way to steep green hillsides and precarious cottages. We climb. It rains intermittently. I find the wipers. They are right where wipers customarily are.

Alice says the cattedrale approaches, but I ignore the occasional ‘Park Here’ sign and climb some more. As Monreale’s byways narrow, the inevitability of having to back up increases. Finally, we pull in to a place for the leaving of the auto. It has an elevator, which presupposes proximity. Yeah, it works. A glimpse of Norman stonework is caught. Confidence returns to our gait. Entrance to the cattedrale is free. This is how the Lord rolls. It is reported to be one of the most spectacular churches in Christendom. It is.

Stories from the Book of Genesis and the life of Christ and every saint and angel in heaven surround the nave and apse in glittering gold mosaic. Splendor and majesty are appropriate. It’s how the pageant was told in the 12^th century. The cattedrale is an illuminated manuscript that everyone could read. Nine hundred years later, standing below, Alice and I can watch Adam and Eve confront the Snake at the Tree of Life and then suffer expulsion in their miserable fur shifts. The mosaic patterns of the floor are as dazzling as the ones that arc above. The church was built by the Norman king of Sicily, William II. Known as William the Good, his father had been William the Bad. In order to stick it to the bishop of Palermo, a difficult guy named Walter of the Mill, William created a new bishopric in Monreale and built this glory. From Monreale, the sprawl of Palermo stretches away to the sea.

Next to the church is an exquisite cloister. Long rows of arches are supported by twin columns of perilous thinness with repeating variations of mosaic tracery, each then supporting a capital of intricate detail: people, animals, fantastical creatures. The beauty and hush of this place is in way it separates shadow from light. We wak through a metaphor of the spirit.

By this time, the two of us are getting a little peaked. No place seems available to eat at. And it’s still sprinkling, frizzante in Italian. We duck into a bakery and buy what are basically pigs-in-blankets, delicious hotdogs in perfect crusty rolls. Emboldened, we hit a café for a kilo of cookies and then hit the road.

We are on our way at Segesta. Alice should see this temple. The rain is intermittent. We scoff at umbrelli. The bus to transport the visitor from the ticket booth to the theater atop the hill seems to have shut down. I’m not hiking this. So up the smaller incline to the temple we go. It doesn’t fail to impress, even twice in a week’s time. I recount the stories I remember from guidebooks and from Elena, the guide. I am unable to convince Ali that the inhabitants of Segesta were called the Segestions.

On to Marsala. By now, we’re old hands at Sicilian highways and byways. Alice suffers/entertains the same directional dyslexia that I do, casually pointing right and saying left. “Go that way,” with an impatient hand gesture doesn’t always bring the desired result. We are finding our way with a few missed turns. ‘Recalibrating’ will be the word of the week. At the city’s outskirts, suddenly all is chaos. I head down one-way streets. I back out of impossible alleys. I perspire. We loop back on ourselves. Frustration builds. “But back there I saw signs for the hotel,” only raises the silent shriek of “Fuck you!”

Then, in the road in front of us, a man on a mobility scooter. We slow. Somehow, he guides us through the warren to our destination.

I have a thing for 19^th Century grand hotels. They are time machines like few places in the world. Richard Wagner finished Parsifal here at the Grand Hotel et Des Palmes in 1881/82. The original building had been built as a palace for the Whitaker/Ingham family, growers and exporters of Marsala wine, and greatly expanded in the late 1800s. They also built the Anglican church that sits cater-corner, looking lovely and ridiculous.

The vast, pale yellow lobby features two groupings of marble statuary, one of moony nymphs and the other, a family of fleeing Trojans. In addition to the eponymous palms, the room contains red carpeting, great gilt mirrors, swell staircases, and northern Europeans in shorts and sandals with socks. Beyond the lobby, elegant public rooms and restaurants stretch in seeming endless extravagance. Breakfast happens in a mirrored salon with pink silk walls and crystal sconces. Abundance begs for indulgence, as typified by the choice of fill-you-own canolis. An aggressive sound system attempts to entertain with the Eric Carmen version of ‘All By Myself’, forcing us tourists to deal with existential dread far from home. Sicily is melancholy, lush, and stoic, and the song’s stupefying superficiality underscores my fabulous good fortune at being here.

Alice is dragging ass. I hereby relinquish my authority on sleeplessness. The day’s plan is to walk for a couple hours, return for afternoon slumber, rally for dinner, and then slumber some more. We catch our bearings by heading to the Teatro Massimo, one of the grandest of grand opera houses in Europe, built before Palermo undertook construction of a municipal hospital. Its great front stairs was where Michael Corleone met his end. I discard the impulse to recreate the drama for selfie purposes. Ali would not have participated.

Further walking leads us to the city’s High Baroque epicenter, the Quattro Canti intersection. The four corners are concave and covered with four stories of pilasters, green shuttered windows, and niches with Spanish grandees. It is oppressive and exuberant. Tourists are the only ones who linger. A few steps away is the Fontana Pretoria or the Fountain of Shame in a courtyard flanked by Palermo’s civic buildings. The shame of the fountain is just centuries of publicity: the statues were supposedly too risqué because of all the nakedness. Who knows, but let me say the women have some very peculiar attributes. And the some of the male statues were given genitals that looked exactly those fur units that Scots wear in front of their kilts.

We continue down toward the sea on Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Our ultimate destination is the fountain at the center of Piazza Marina. Gary, from Bread Loaf, is spending a couple days in Palermo and suggested lunch. Along the way, Alice and I run into Frances, also from our workshop and give her the lunch plans. Jennifer, from Albequerque, will also be part of this group – four of us nonfictioneers and tolerant (sleepy) Alice.

Piazza Marina hosts a huge Sunday flea market. The wares are dazzling in their variety and seeming randomness. The morning feels warm in the sun and cool out of it. The park’s great ficus trees cast epic shade. Alice and I circumnavigate, then, exhausted, step into Santa Maria della Catena, a lovely 16^th Century church. Its stained glass casts dapples of color on the floor and the columns. Afterwards, we search for the Marionette Museum, unsure of the appeal of its contents. It’s closed. Relief is sighed.

I continue to be tailed by that sewage-y smell. I can conjure up two possible reasons, (1) there hasn’t been a real cleansing downpour in Palermo in months or (2) the sewers date from the Romans, and, as such, are a fiesta of deferred maintenance.

Back at the flea market, serendipity bumps us into Gary and Jennifer. We search for a bench by the fountain and wait for Frances. Fifteen minutes of wiggle-room is allowed and then lunch must be obtained. We get turned away at a couple places; Sunday noon meal is a big deal, of course. But down a secondary street we are in luck. Sitting outside at a table for four, we haven’t even ordered when Frances turns to us. She had been sitting but six feet away. We commandeer a large table and have a grand old time. Alice seems happy to meet some of my workshop people, for so long veiled in mystery.

We part in great sweetness and Alice and I head back to snooze. On Via Roma, we pass the Main Post Office, a reminder of the Italian fascist past and its not negligible design achievements. It’s a blazing white marble rectangle that holds its space with authority. Still, its elements are balanced and refined, so its bulk evokes awe more than fear. Yet, it is a fascist post office, home to ruthless bureaucrats and bloodless proles. Weird.

Tonight is both the Super Blood Moon Eclipse and the Bennington Writers / Cornelia Street reading that Oona Patrick is guest-hosting for me. The center had better fucking hold. I covered all the details before I left, except I forgot ice. But I remembered I forgot and all is well. The reading should be about to commence as I drop off to sleep. With ease.

Departure Day.

Writing about not sleeping is such a pathetic exercise. Boo fuckin’ Hoo. Taxis start picking up airport-bound writers at three in the morning. I have the noisiest fucking room in the hotel; the first room on the second floor, right off the stairs, and right over the hotel entrance. Sound caroms off the stone floors and down hallways and up staircases. The rolly suitcase percussion ensemble, the random scraping of furniture and dropping of toiletries, and the fucking quarter hour bells of Erice recapitulate a masterful version of ‘The Lord Chancellor’s Nightmare Song.’ So I rouse my sorry ass to write: a bloggish post, an essay revision, and the Bread Loaf workshop evaluation. Apparently, I will sleep when I am dead. Or next Thursday.

I’m on the 8:45am van from Erice to Palermo Aeroporto. Alice will arrive on a 1:40pm flight from Rome. We get to the airport and disperse like iron filings before a magnet. I find myself standing there with a speck-and-brie sandwich in one hand and a Coke Zero in the other. Then I sit at the counter next to one of the Bread Loaf staff and we have a fine conversation about the practicality of MFA programs for distractible people. Me being an expert. Alice’s plane is still on time. I go find the pick-up location for the rent-a-car shuttle. Then I have a surprise encounter with a bright young woman I had been meaning to engage with all week. We find a bench outside and gab away. She lives in Barcelona and works for a local politician. She’s sad.

Alice is delayed a half hour. And then, there she is! Joy! Double Joy!!

A ferocious, very pale, Hebrew-speaking extended family crams onto the car rental shuttle. They wear white t-shirts proclaiming – Beeri Family / Sicily 2015. Once in the rent-a-car terminus, they move away en masse, in search, I suppose, of the ‘Clown Car’ counter. Still, it’s a pain in the ass dealing with the crush at Hertz, but eventually we are guided to our Fiat. It’s snappy-looking and soon revealed to be dead in the water. Negative pick-up. I’m not dealing with the manual/automatic gear system effectively. Alice tells me so. She uses Google Maps and we sail along. We almost take out a block-long row of fruit stalls trying to find our way into Palermo. Our hotel is a slightly shabby Grand Hotel. WiFi exists. So does a shower.

The two of us try to find dinner at six o’clock. No way, we’re in Europe. It finally happens. I love that Alice is here.

I’m fading. Literature has taken its toll. The compound reasons for fatigue are too dreary to enumerate. Again. Okay. For example: I am convinced the rank, yet elusive, sewage-y smell would disappear every time I might try to bring it to the attention of the management. It’s like playing peek-a-boo with an evil fart.

Anyway, I am in danger of slipping into unconsciousness at any moment. I don’t want to be the droopy old dude at the poetry reading. This morning Natasha Trethewey gave a fine lecture on the legacy of racial injustice, riffing on the evolution of Robert Penn Warren’s understanding of the conflict over his lifetime. She quotes him often and one line from his poem, Brother to Dragons, rings out with horrible resonance.

“And doom is always domestic, it purrs like a cat/And the absolute traitor lurks in some sweet corner of the blood.”

This is our final workshop. We rise to the occasion. We have become a cohesive unit, happily following Patricia’s lead. She guides us to lunch where the eight of us share a congenial end of one of the hotel’s long tables. Five of us (not I) agree to meet tomorrow in Palermo and go hear La Boheme at Teatro Massimo.

After Lynn Freed’s funny story about three women on a Greek isle, I wander into town with the eager, young fiction guy named Jon to have spot of tea at his favorite coffee stop. I read his story, a dense piece of post-modernism leavened by an off-hand sense of merriment. He’s read my Spring Comes to the Desert and dug it. Cool.

Our final meal takes place at a restaurant / hotel where we seem to be the only guests. We look out over the Mediterranean, illuminated by the backwash of an overwhelming sunset. There is much merriment and toasting. The feast is festive and perhaps the richest, most elegant, meal we’ve had. Two enormous poached fish are paraded in front of us, then served, Christ-like, to the multitude. The ‘loaf’ quotient is provided by Bread Loaf’s mere existence. The week has been blessedly sermonless.

Many sweet good-byes and promises to remain in touch. I pack, sort of.