Jardin Majorelle of Yves St. Laurent

Mohammed Abdullah, my driver, strongly suggested I take a look at the late couturier, Yves St. Laurent's villa, which he bequeathed to the City. The garden is a forest of bamboo, banana, palm, and cactus [mostly Sonoran]. The house, now the Musee Berbere, is  painted the designer's favorite color - a deep, electric blue - accented with lemon-yellow:





      

Marrakesh

I am in my second week in Marrakesh, which is very much like AZ.  Architechturally, a cross between Santa Fe and Phoenix - in the new part - and pure Areabian nights in the old part. They seem to have a building code, so that everything - even high-rise hotels - have to look like adobe on the outside. The Medina (old walled city) seems authentic enough). lots of crenelated walls and square towers.

Since all they have beyond agriculture is tourism and phosphate, they are EXTREMELY jealous of their reputation for hospitality. They are very concerned that tourists have a good time. One feels utterly safe..  

Weather is beautiful, perfect. Great view of the Jupiter/venus conjunction from my balcony overlooking the pool. And birds. Birds, birds, birds. Noisy with birds in the garfdens surrounding the hotel, which has a rose garden, blooming oranges and lemons, lots of palms, of course, and  and a hibiscus hedge hugging the buildings. And this is costing me less than $30/day, including breakfast! Clean and luxurious.

But then,  as my students say, with nauseating persistence, "everything's relative". The Hotel Mamounia is luxurious at a level hard to imagine, with prices to match ($500-1,000/night). Have a look at their video. The first scene shows the table on one of their terraces where I had a $9 cup of coffee, while waiting for my $150 pedicure at the spa rated "best in the world" in 2011. Fortunately, it was all cosmetic, and they were unable to cut my toenails! So, I got a free foot-bath and foot-massage,, as a consolation prize. My $6 coffe was well worth it as trhe price of admission to this really unbelievable fantasy palace.

It is haerd to describe the "spa", but I'll try. First, I go into a kind of foyer: a long rectangular room, sheathed in white curtains, which blow in the breeze from the patio. There is a desk and a couple of white-clad attendants to show you to the elevator, which they summon and push the buttons for me. I come out in a dimly-lit cavern in deep, cobalt blue, named for some French-Moroccan designer. there are candle-lanterns on the floor of the arching hall-ways. eventually I arrive at the main desk, passing spacious, private massage rooms. The desk has a light-show projected on the wall behind it: a kind of kaleidescope, with arabesque patterns in many colors, slowly moving like fish in an aquarium. 

I am escorted to a room [about the size of my room at the cheap hotel], where I sit in a white-leather recliner. The masseuse starts to bathe my feet. Perfumed oil in the water, as I look at the odd, sharp-angled room design - light grey  walls, on which hang mirrors with coral, silver-studded frames. Then in came the matronly British manager to explain that the "best spa in the world" couldn't handle my toenails. But she was very gracious, calling a slightly less-seclusive spa to make an appointment for me [which worked out fine].

Moors in livery everywhere , opening doors, vigilant for ways to be helpful, kiosks carved out if marble, mosaics, tiles, elegant upholstery in the dark restaurants and bars, sunken fountains and water running out of faucets in the walls, acres oiof gardens witht he Atlas mountains in hte distance.

After this brush witih luxury and the "lifestyle" of the rich, I walked over to a souk (not a tourist trap, but where the Berbers actually buy stuff for themselves) and ate a humble but decent lunch with the ordinary citizens - for less than I paid for the luxury coffee.

Vegetarians would do well in Marrakesh. Most of my nightly dinners at the hotel consist of a beautifully-presented salad bar. easy enough to skip the chicken and beef, and just go for salads and pastries.

I took one excursion up into the mountains, where we visited a women's co-operative that produces all kinds of products based on the oil of a unique kind of almond. Cosmetics and cooking oil. The Atlas mountains are really spectacular, snow-covered, and high. They catch enough moisture to permit habitation to the west. East is the Sahara. I did see one Berber tent with camels!

we also had tea in a "typical" Berber house. Interesting enough. An adobe pueblo, for an extended family, with ceilings made out of vigas and  laterias, just like in AZ, only instead of saguaro ribs, the Berbers use bamboo for the laterias. 

An old guy made us some traditional ta in the patio.. First he put green tea into a big silver pot and added a bit if hot water. This he then poured out and added more hot water. When the second test was dark enough, he added loaf-sugar and stuffed in a whole fistful of mint branches. After a minute or so he gave ujs each a glass. Quite good.

They showed us the hamam, which is just a small, domed room built in such a way that there can be a fire under the floor, to heat it up for bathing.

I figured out that everyone here is really a Berber. It's just that the towns people have spoken Arabic for a thousand years, so the division is urban/rural. Berbers are what they call people whose native language is Berber. They are the indigenous people. The Moors (Arabs) are more cosmopolitan, with a bit of admixture from ethnic Arabs and black Africans.

Anyway, they are amiable people, and their government is benevolent despotism. They are poor, but not miserable. They are also young and energetic. Hassan II decided enough luxury was enough, and set a policy of one new dam a year, and universal education. the result is complete electrification and running water,k and a literacy rate of almost 70%. His son, the present king, Mohammed VI has promulgated a new constitution, which makes women and men completely equal, under law, and sets aside a block of parliamentary seats for women. School is free and open to all, but it is not compulsory, for some reason. Across the busy street from my hotel is the big technical university, and i see as many women as men going in and out.

So far, I have seen only three veiled women, and the rest seem to be evenly divided between those who wear hair-covering and those who don't. [It's kind of like Turkey, in this regard]. scarfless girls in blue-jeans tear around on motor-scooters. Obviously, no one is forcing anyone to wear anything. Lots of women wear scarves; lots of men wear  little Muslim caps. Lots more don't. It seems to be a matter of personal preference.

Apparently, there is a significant Sufi component in Moroccan Islam, never hassled by the government. Maybe this accounts for their fairly laid-back religious temperament. 

Now I'm off to arrange for a tailor-made jilaba (the hooded caftan that half the older men wear over their blue-jeans). They don't have my size off-the-rack, so I am having one made for not-very-much money, courtesy of a nice cab-driver. [All the cabbies are guides.]

here is the main square (where I saw actual snake-charmers, with shawms and live cobras!)

Russian Cathedral in Paris

St. Alexandre Nevsky is the cathedral of the Orthodox Church in France. it started out as a center for the numerous Russian émigré's in Paris in the mid-19th century. The revolution swelled its ranks with the "best and the brightest" of émigré Christians, including people with names like Berdyaev, Bulgakov, Evdokimov, and a couple of Saints: my own Starets Sophrony (before he moved to England), and the remarkable Mother Marya Skobtsova — now St. Maria of Paris.

Santa Maria, like Dorothy Day, was an actual mother, as well as a spiritual one. She devoted her life to the poor, rescued thousands of Jews, and died as a martyr in Ravensbrucke.

Now there seems to be a whole new generation of émigrés. The place was packed. There were plenty of young people and small children at the liturgy this morning, which was celebrated by Archbishop Gabriel.

The Cathedral is a fine example of the national style. The iconography has a flavor of the jugenstihl, which can be a little startling at first, but I have grown to like it. Russian painters little-known outside Russia (because they painted mostly religious paintings and then came the anti-religious revolution) — such as Nesterov and Vaznetsov.

Nesterov ~ The Angelic Liturgy, 

Vaznetsov Theotokos

These two are examples of this style in other places, nit Paris. Copy and  enlarge the following picture to see what I mean. This ikonostas, completed in 1861, shows the beginning of the style, I think.

Iconostasis at Alexandre Nevsky Cathedral

In the North and South "transepts" I found painting is unusual for an Orthodox Church: not icons, but gigantic paintings depicting events in the Gospels, by the Alexey Bogolyubov, the landscape painter.

The proto--Deacon had the name of the composer of one of the Yale Russian Chorus's liturgical pieces. Nikolai Kedrov was associated with this cathedral. I assume the deacon is his descendant. Here is a sample of the choir, in dialogue with Deacon Alexander.

Chilling in Paris

France is pretty cool — cold, actually, until last week. I went to see the huge Egyptian collection at the Louvre, the Impressionists at Musée d'Orsay, and a nice Cézanne exhibit at the  Musée Luxembourg. 

I went out to Chartres to stare at the windows, and I spent a day in Notre Dame de Paris. Half the windows in Ste. Chapelle are under repair, and there is always a big long line of Chinese tourists waiting to get through the much-enhanced security, so I am going to skip it this time. Anyway, I got to see the Crown of Thorns, which they now have out in an apsidal chapel in Notre Dame.

I have also been to my favorite restaurant several time's (the one where they serve the whole shoulder of lamb, cooked confit style  and served on a cutting board, covered with fried potato slices).

                      Les Diablotins

 I have also really gotten into French bread. And bismarcks (which they call beignet). The latter is not particularly good news, but I have been walking a lot more than I do at home, so maybe it balances out.

The house in Suresnes is really comfortable and it is only a couple of blocks from the main street with all the shops, including about five hairdressers, two butchers, one high-end delicatessen, a cheese shop, two gfree-grocers, a frozen-food shop, several unpretentious restaurants, including Asian ones, two supermarkets and three bakeries. Most of the apartments are public housing,  built in the 30s and 60s. But they are extremely well-built, and the older ones are even rather elegant-looking. Everything else is single-family, suburban houses, like this one. This is, after all, the "fashionable" West — the area is even known as Val d'Or or Golden Valley. But Suresnes is the poor cousin of St. Cloud, its southern neighbor, which is where all the ex-pats live, including Johnny Depp.

Last week I house-sat for a friend in the 13th (SE. of the center, up the river on the left bank). Her apartment is on the top floor of a skyscraper right at the edge of Paris proper. From her 28th floor windows, there is a great view of Paris, and at night you can watch the Eiffel Tower sparkle with its strobe lights, which they turn on for 10 minutes just before the hour until they shut it all down at 1 AM. The Invalides gleams, the Pantheon broods, and you can even see the towers of La Defense, on a clear day – although there weren't  many of those. Fortunately, another high-rise entirely blocks the view of the ghastly Basilique Sacre Couer! The neighborhood (Port d' Choisy) is the center of Paris's Chinatown (or, more precisely, Indo-Chinatown). dozens of Asian restaurants, mostly Vietnamese and Lao. lots of Asian and African people, too, and not many Frenchmen. (Notice how European racism  has rubbed off on me? As though the French of African and Asian descent were not really French!) 

                      Outside the front door!

In any case, there was something really appealing about Port d' Choisy - more cosmopolitan and less suburban, I suppose. I even had a nice conversation with a young butcher at the supermarket there, who was of European extraction. As I was stumbling over my French (so many people speak English now, that I have not been forced to practice) he switched to English. I grunted something, and he said  "you speak very good English". I thanked him and told him that it was it, in fact, my native tongue. He asked me where I was from and  I told him America, Minnesota. He brightened and said that he had never been there, but he did go to Georgetown University, where he earned a BA in political science! We chatted for while, which he was eager to do, and it was all very pleasant. This kind of thing would never happen in Suresnes.

Next Tuesday, I will fly to Morocco for two weeks. Everybody must be afraid or something, because there are some really good deals. I am paying about $700 for 14 days, including airfare! The hotel has a big pool, a Turkish bath, and a garden. It's a cab ride to the old-town, but I really just want to sit in the sun, anyway. Time to get out of the chill, and get a head-start on spring. It seems to be in the 70s in Marrakesh. When I get back here it should be pretty nice. Maybe even nice enough to go out to Jean-loup's retreat in Brittany. And Claude (of the high-rise apartment) wants to take me out to Fontainebleau. I expect to be home on March 29.

On the Anniversary of Hazrat Inayat Khan's Death (called by Sufis his URS, or "wedding")

 

<< There comes a time in the life of a man when he can see some good in the worst man in the world. And when he has reached that point, though the good were covered with a thousand covers, he would put his hand on what is good, because he looks for good and attracts what is good. >>
                                                                                     – Hazrat Inayat Khan

Pir-O-Murshid said words to the effect that "there is not a hair’s breadth of  difference between good and evil". I think he must have meant good and evil persons. This is related to our Lord's injunction not to judge, lest we be judged. Hazrat Inayat Khan says the same thing, when he observes that  << No one can speak ill of another without making it his own; because the one speaking ill of others is ill himself.  >>  And thus, there is really no moral difference between condemner  and condemned.

Human beings have a deep-seated inclination to criticize others and excuse themselves: to behold the speck in the eye of the brother while ignoring the log in their own. This is part of the illusion known as Samsara; perhaps it is the essence of that illusion. With practice, this propensity turns into the widespread madness in which I project all my own failings onto others. Eventually, in order to the rid the world of this evil, I have to kill the others. Thus,  as Starets Sophrony  said,” the absolute precondition of peace in this world is the profound recognition of one's own sin." This fact is also behind the Orthodox communion prayer, in which those about to receive communion describe themselves, individually, as "the chief of sinners".  If beholding the speck leads ultimately to death, so noticing the log leads to life.

But this does not mean that there is no difference between good and evil. After all, condemning others is worse than not doing so. (That is the whole point!) It does mean that there is very little difference between good and evil persons, from the divine point of view. Let me dare to suggest that from that point of view, persons are seen for what they are as opposed to what they are not. Human persons are the image of God, perfectly good. God does not behold distortion and disfiguration of the image. God sees what is; what is not, God does not see. Perhaps this is what the prophet meant, who said God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil and cannot look on iniquity " (Habakuk 1:13).

So, from the divine point of view, there is little to choose between – say – Adolf  Hitler and Mother Teresa, as human beings created in the image of God. This is not to say that there is no difference in their effect on the world. Love is good; malice is bad. But only God can know the inner conditions, motivations, and intentions of human beings. As the hadith puts it:

Every man acts according to his own understanding, and God alone knows who is rightly guided.

Marv Davidov RIP

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, 

for they shall be filled.

Marv Davidov was a kind of saint, by which I do not intend the trivial, goody-two-shoes, popularized  meaning, but the real meaning –  a person of heroic public virtue:

He was fearless in combating evil –  the forces of wickedness that seek to destroy the creatures of God, such as racial segregation, the Vietnam war – indeed all war and war profiteers like Honeywell –  and the whole, Godless economic structure that insures increasing misery and inequality.    

         

He cared nothing for money, and he was always poor – at least in terms of that idolatrous structure.

Marv Davidov was also a patriot – I mean in the real sense of the word, not in the Orwellian sense of the “Patriot” Act, which makes people like him into criminals.  Marv was a patriot in that he spent his whole life trying to get America to live up to its own ideals. The best testament to that is own FBI file, which he read in public at a fund-raiser!

Marv had a sense of humor, which is also a mark of sanctity. Humor and joy. I will never forget a long conversation with him, thirty years ago, about fasting and singing in a Mississippi jail. He actually radiated joy.

By any religious or philosophical standard, Marv Davidov led a good life – an exemplary life. I have no doubt that, in the language of my tradition, he has heard the stunning words:

Well done, my good and faithful servant. 

Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Feast of St. Sulpice

January 15 is the patronal feast of my favorite parish in Paris: St. Sulpice in the Latin Quarter. It has a terrific organ - the second largest in Paris. 

Carles-Marie Widor played it for 63 years. They always have a recital before and after the principal mass, with organist, Daniel Roth. And today they have a concert in the afternoon, too:

 

Dorian Toccata of Bach by Nicolas RIVES. ? Folia Antonio Vivaldi :  Laetitia Richardoz first violin, second violin LAGACHE Melody,  Paul SLAMA bass. ? Concerto for violin and oboe JS Bach : Laetitia Richardoz violin, oboe Gabriel PIDOUX, Bastien ROLLAND violin, viola Anne Lapasset, Paul SLAMA bass. ? first four movements of the second Partita in D minor J. -S. Bach

Like the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna, it has a meridian line on the floor. For convenience, many large churches installed these in the Renaissance, as an aid to scientific calculations about the size and motion of the earth. St. Sulpice posts the following disclaimer, in response to the fantasies of Dan Brown: 


The "meridien" line materialized by a brass inlay in the pavement of this church is part of a scientific instrument built here during the 18th century. This was done in full agreement with Church authorities by the astronomers in charge of the newly-built Paris Observatory. They used it for defining various parameters of the earth's orbit. Similar arrangements have been made, for the sake of convenience, in other large churches like the Bologna cathedral, where Pope Gregory XIII had preparatory studies made for the enactment of the present, "Gregorian" calendar. 

Contrary to fanciful allegations in a recent bestselling novel, this is not the vestige of a pagan temple. No such temple ever existed in this place. It was never called a "Rose Line." It does not coincide with the meridian traced through the middle of the Paris Observatory which serves as a reference for maps where longitudes are measured in degrees East or West of Paris. No mystical notion can be derived from this instrument of astronomy except to acknowledge that God the Creator is the master of time. 

Please also note that the letters "P" and "S" in the small round windows at both ends of the transept refer to Peter and Sulpice, the patron saints of the church, not an imaginary "Priory of Sion."




The baroque building was erected during the reign of Louis XIV. the distinguished Abbé whose project it was used to accept lots of dinner invitations from wealthy people, who always found silver missing after his visits. It is said that helped build the church! 


After Mass, I walked over to the little square just down the hill from the Odeon theater in the Luxembourg Garden to find that the Horse Tavern was closed for remodeling. It is an Irish bar, but it has a fine choucroute alsacienne.

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: pork belly (fat bacon) frankfurter, smoked porkchop, rindwurst

So, I settled for Les Éditeurs across the street, which had a nice brunch (nothing special).

This is the book-shop part of town, near the University, hence the library theme. It is also the neighborhood of the famous Shakespeare & Co., which was associated with Hemmingway and others in the '20s - not to be confused with its equally-venerable namesake founded by the recently-deceased George Whitman.

Old shop then

and now

I figured out how to take the bus from Suresnes, avoiding the metro (too many stairs). And you see allot more, of course. My route takes me through the Bois de Boulogne

To Porte Maillot

Convention center on the left, Avenue de la Grande Armee and the Arc d'Triomphe at the top, my bus can be seen at the lower-right-hand corner

On through the fashionable 16th to the Place Victor Hugo

and Trocadero

Then across the Pont d'Iena

past the Tour Eiffel

and the Hotel des Invalides (Louis XIV's old soldiers' home, to which Napoleon III added the tomb of his uncle)

and up to the Gare Montparnasse

and finally to the Jardin de Luxembourg, named for the palace built for a queen, which now houses the Senate.

(This is not how it looks this time of the year!)

Anglo-Catholic Socialism

I have been asked to provide a forum for tthe adult education hour at our Episcopal cathedral in Paris. It should be amusing, since (a) the congregation contains a lot of rich expatriates, and (b) it is locate dat a very swanky address in the "golden triangle": right off the Champs Elysee next to one of the world's most expensive hotels (The Four Seasons). So, I have decided to talk about the necessity of Christian socialism!

In preparation, I have been running across lots of interesting stuff. Here is a sample, a quotation from Fr. Kenneth Leech, one of the luminaries of my generation:

Transformation occurs only in the liturgy and not in the world, there bread and wine remain hoarded, but not offered, concentrated and not broken, maldistributed and not shared. The Eucharist becomes a freak, a contradiction of social reality, instead of a pointer to how reality should be reshaped. If we then go back to read the early Christian Fathers we find how far we have come from their understanding. St. John Chrysostom draws the closest connection between the real presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament and his real presence in the poor and oppressed. We need to recover this connection between the Sacraments and the structures of the world, and to take seriously the social and political consequences of being one body in Christ.


And here is one of St. John Chrysostom's sermons. It is rather hilarious, in that it asks the congregation of the principal church in the Roman capital of Constantinople to imagine what it would be like if everyone did as the first Christians, and gave everything they had to the Church for redistribution! "And if you please, let us now for awhile depict it in words, and derive at least this pleasure from it, since you have no mind for it in your actions." 

Trapani

From Palermo to Trapani on New Year’s Day has been delightful – more rewarding than expected. First, I have the train almost to myself. [As in Spain, most natives travel by bus, becsause it’s faster.] Second, it is warm enough to open the windows on this little local train. The three-hour journey stops everywhere and goes to the south side of the peninsula first. This gives me a tour of the Sicilian countryside, on what turns out to be an exceptionally fine day. 

It is like Spring in early May in Mn. Clear skies with cotton-ball clouds and rain- fresh air.  The first party of the trip, along the north coast, is spectacular – mountain after mountain, shaped like the Rock of Gibralter, vertical cliffs rising right out of the sea.

Sicily here does not seem that poor. The stuccoed stone houses and new apartment buildings look almost prosperous. As we turn inland, I notice that there aren’t Any trees. Big difference from Calabria. Here, the only trees seem to have been planted – all olives, no citrus here – and the few pine and cedar are all around houses.

Farther south, toward Marsala, the mountains give way to a plain with vast olive plantations  and vineyards. 

I think I read somewhere that  they cut down the forests centuries ago. Now there are signs of some attempt at reforestation – but it’s mostly cultivated. It’s vivid green this time of year, but I’ll bet its yellow and brown in the summer. 

Other side of the island at dusk. Pale pink-stucco and some rather nice looking villas by the sea.

No cabs at the station, so I walked over to the main street. Same story, so I asked a teenaged couple, who were most helpful. The girl, who was lovely despite her braces, did most of the talking – having claimed some English – but the boy ran ahead, leading us back to the station, where a cab was – rather miraculously – waiting. I shook both their hands and thanked them profusely.

My B&B, the Alla Marina, seems to be in medes res – with a live jazz band playing very well outside the window in a kind of park for welcoming tourists. The ferry wharf is across the street, and the main street with restaurants is a block the other way. The room itself is in an old pensione-style apartment on the third floor. It is just about perfect: high, curving ceilings, dark woodwork, antique furniture, real fabric on the walls above the wainscoting. [Now I REALLY feel I am living in Il Gatopardo!] 

Although my room looks like it was decorated by Josiah Wedgewood, it has all the conveniences, including cable TV. Best of all, the wi-fi and elevator actually work!

“No stairs”, however, does not translate into Italian. When I booked the room, I made a clear note in the “special needs” box. I received an e-mail back assuring me about the elevator. When I arrive, I found three steps to the elevator and another three to my room! They just don’t count here! Oh well, I didn’t make a scene, although I did mention it. “ ‘No stairs’ doesn’t mean ‘no stairs’ in Italy”, I remarked. The nice, English-speaking owner (who lives in the first floor) laughed and agreed that it was very difficult to avoid them.

It is a commendable place, however, and I may stay a few extra days to chill out. It’s a good deal. @$75/day. My Eurailpass expires today, having gone out with a whimper – no sign of a conductor on the train at all. And we passed the airport on the way into Trapani. The bus to it leaves from right across the street, and there is a RyanAir flight direct to Beauvais, from which there is a shuttle-bus to Porte Maillot.

The restaurant San Lorenzo is a small (two-man) operation on the Corso Vittore Emanuale which is the auto-free main drag. 

One again, I seem to be right on Nicollet Mall, which is fine with me. The Sicilians, like everybody else in this part of the world, apparently, like to walk around slowly just after dark. I got into the restaurant at 8:30 and it was still a bit early – even on New Year’s night. 

I tried their caponata and discovered that it isn’t really a relish, but a kind of stew of eggplants and olives, with a little tomato and herbs. [Everbody has their own recipe.] The chef came out afterwards to ask how I liked everything, and he also told me that he puts sugar in the caponata. I am going to have to try this at home. I mentioned Inspector Montalbano, and he smiled – he said he knew him! I said that if figured Trapani was Montelusa.

The pasta was a local, hand-made specialty called basiunale, which is like very thick, twisted spaghetti – or like long, thin rotini. Mine was a pesto of garlic and something green (not basil) and French fries! I noticed that their salata caprese is made with oregano, not basil. Maybe it’s too hot here for basil. 

Trapani seen from the west. The neck of land on the left is the old town. On the north side,
you can just make out the white hulks of the ferries and passenger ships that go to Sardinia and Tunisia

I recommend Trapani without reservation (except that you probably have to fly RyanAir to get there). The people, architechture, food, sea  and countryside are all lovely - and pretty affordable, considering what you get.

Monreale and Palermo

Monreale was my reason for staying a whole day in Palermo. My cab-driver from the station offered a private tour, for a fairly hefty price, but the convenience was worth it. Giuseppe spoke good English and looked like he worked for Tony Soprano. He couldn’t have been nicer. Monreale – as the nasme suggests, on top of a mountain, for defence – was the Norman capital in the 12^th C. Here William II built one of the world’s great churches.

The Basilica/Cathedral of Monreale (still an archiepiscopal see, although Palermo long-since surpassed it in institutional importance), has the best mosaics I have ever seen. They are perfectly preserved Byzaantine master[ieces. They give one an idea of what Hagia Sophia must have been like before iconoclasm. The pictures give an impression; but to be among them is breathtaking.

The whole interior is covered in perfectly-preserved mosaics. They depict biblical stories from the Patriarchs to Moses to the Gospels, as did the later gothic windows in France. But these representations are far more legible 

On the way back, G. stopped at a great, panoramic vista of all Palermo. This city of about a million (five million all told in Sicily) has been through Romans and Byzantines and Arabs and Normans and Spanish and finally modern Italians. 

There are lots of narrow back streets, but no really impressive boulevards, as in Montpellier. But there are citrus groves everywhere: lemons, oranges, tangerines. And plenty of markets – one every day right in one of the many ancient city gates, which are still preserved.

The Cathedral of Palermo is dim by comparison, although – as Giuseppe observed – its exterior is more beautiful. But the baroque interior is nothing special. The Teatro Massimo is a big opera house. The Royal Palace has a Norman section and a Bourbon (Spanish) section. 

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies had its capital in Naples, but kept the palace in Palermo for state occasions, I guess.

I kept thinking of Giuseppe di Lampedusa and his middle-aged Prince Fabrizio of Salina, who on the way to see his mistress, would get out of his carriage to kneel on the pavement when the Bl. Sacrament was carried by on the way to a death bed. (The priest used to be escorted by a little procession, preceded by a ringing bell, to alert the faithful.) There are still plenty of carriages of the kind in which the nobleman rode – now for tourists, of course.

One of the churches – S. Cataldo – is a handsome old former mosque. 

I remember stopping in Taranto in ’78 on the Feast of S. Cataldo, who is apparently the patron of that Apulian city. Big festivities, in which his silver statue is carried through the streets.

 G. told me that Palermo’s patroness is Sta. Rosalia. He also showed me the plaque in the Piazza Marina honor of the Italian-American investigator, Joe Petrosino, who was assassinated by the mafia when he came to investigate them in 1909.

The four-star hotel is a splurge – big and modern. The Tyrrhenian Sea fills my window, which faces directly north from the 11^th floor. Beautiful and sunny today, the mistral blowing steadily from colder places. So, there’s no hanging out on the terrace or beach, but I think the temperature is about the same as Barcelona. Tomorrow to Trapani and then back to Paris. One day of being driven around a Sicilian city confirms the wisdom of my decision not to rent a car here. 

Sky Cable has all the European news channels, plus FOX and CNBC, but no CNN. Also a direct, live Vatican feed. I was able to watch vespers and Solemn Te Deum from St. Peter’s. The Pope wore a gorgeous gold cope and mitre, deacons’ dalmatics matching. Lots of cardinals and monsignori. The deacon carrying the Bl. Sacrament, wore an enormous humeral veil, the size of an altar cloth, and an attendant held an ombrellino over him. Choir was dramatic, Italianate. Another vimpa for the papal mitre-bearer, but no double-wheelies! The occasion, I guess, was the eve of wha5t the Romans now call the Feast of the motherhood of Mary. [January 1 – eight days after the Nativity – used to be called Circumcision. We changed it to Holy Name, which is what the Romans used to call it, before they decided Mary needed more attention. Somewhere in there, I seem to recall it was called the Feast of the Holy Family.] The Latin Divine Praises now include something about Mary’s Assumption, if I heard correctly.

Dinner was at a Ristorantino Agrodolce, right next to the hotel (which is now full of Germans in mink). I walked a few block up the shabby street, risked my life crossing some – in the striped crosswalks, which speeding Sicilians give up to pedestrians with great reluctance,  to find only a EUR 40 menu that didn’t look that interesting. I am very happy with my choice, because I got some authentic Sicilian food, I think – the kind Inspector Montalbano is always finding Adelina has left for him in his refrigerator:

1.       Antipasto of assorted Sicilian dishes

a.       caponata – a cold eggplant-and-olive concoction that is a signature of Sicilian cooking

b.      pannele –  garbanzo bean fritter (flat)

c.       stiglioni – another, heftier fritter with some kind of creamy, vegetable filling

2.       Casarecce – a pasta that was new to me – a kind of double-barrelled spaghetti, cut in two-inch lengths – al dente with a fish and eggplant sauce. with a nice aglio olio sauce.

3.       Canolo again, only this time with ricotta and crust broken up. It was the waiter’s suggestion. Maybe they were trying to get rid of it, but that is fine with me. It was divine.