On the Monday morning we went back to Mr Auto-electrician, who reckoned that the alternator couldn’t be fixed. He had found a new (expensive) replacement that might do the job and could be with us in 2 days. However, we really wanted a Balmar alternator that we knew would tie in with our smart-charger system, and ended up ordering one to be sent from the UK. The guy from Florio Yacht Club next door (who was letting us have electric and water) said it was OK for us to have it delivered to his office. The alternator was due to be with us by the end of the week, so we settled down to explore Palermo. Luckily, the old Agip berth was free – one of the most scary things about high season technical hitches is the potential cost of being stuck in an expensive marina berth unable to move! Florio Yacht Club would have cost us €80 a night at this time of year.

Courgettes

We walked miles through the maze of Palermo, staying in the shade wherever we could. Luckily the main ‘market street’ was only a few minutes walk from the marina and boasted fantastic fruit, vegetable, meat and fish stalls. We saw 1-metre-long courgettes, and fruit (four different sorts of melons, figs, peaches, pineapples, apricots and tiny pears) to die for. Bethany and Bryn checked out the ice-cream, and Mummy and Daddy checked out the beer.

Official ice-cream tester at work.

Column tops

We're still learning about the Romans and slowly moving onto the Greeks – there is so much interesting stuff around us here in Sicily (we are about to move on to the Odyssey). On the architecture front, the kids and I are getting up to speed on Greek/Roman column tops and now know our Dorics from our Ionics and Corinthians.

Doric and Ionic columns – and the Sicilians’ love of extravagant decoration.

Palermo Cathedral.

Capuchin Catacombs

We got up especially early one morning to find the Capuchin Catacombs while it was still cool. These were started in 1599 (so Wikipedia says) when the monks ran out of room in the cemetery, so they mummified the body of one of their number (Brother Silvestro of Gubbio) and put him on display in the crypt beneath the Monastery. There now more than 8000 mummified bodies lining the walls, many on display (upright against the walls) or in glass coffins.

Mummified monks (borrowed photo).

The process of mummification was helped by the conditions in the catacombs. The bodies were dehydrated on racks of ceramic pipes and sometimes later washed with vinegar. Some bodies were sealed in glass coffins (shades of Snow White), and later on, some were embalmed using formalin to kill bacteria, alcohol to dry the body, glycerin to prevent over drying, salicylic acid to kill fungi, and zinc salts to give the body rigidity. Monks were preserved with their everyday clothing and sometimes with the ropes that they had worn around their necks as a penance.

Originally the catacombs were intended only for dead monks, but it became trendy for the rich and famous of Palermo to be interred here in their best clothes. Apparently, relatives would visit to pray for their dead relatives (holding their hands so that they could ‘join’ their family in prayer). The catacombs were maintained through donations – as long as the contributions continued, the body remained in its proper place but if the contributions stopped, the body was put aside on a shelf – an old twist on ‘pay and display’! The last body was added in 1920 – a little girl named Rosalia Lombardo – who was 2 years old when she died. There are separate sections for monks, priests, professionals, women, virgins (!), children and babies. Today, iron grills have been installed to prevent tourists tampering with or posing with the corpses.

What the best-dressed corpses were wearing in Palermo in the past (borrowed photo).

No it didn’t smell horrid, just a little musty. In true CAPE homeschooling style, we discussed skeletal development, tooth decay and alveolar ridge resorption (why your lower jawbone gets thinner if your teeth are removed).

Staying cool with Scrabble

When we weren’t checking out the mummies and vegetables, we tried to stay cool. Protected from the sea breeze, it was a little warm both on the boat and in the city (averaging about 35ºC in the boat during the middle of the day, dropping to a cool 26ºC at night). We were also forced to wage an ongoing war against the mozzies with proper bed nets and burning anti-mozzie coils – but we’re not sure who won (it certainly wasn’t Bryn and I)!

We introduced the kids to the joys of Scrabble… Unfortunately we lost a ‘D’ under the cockpit floor.

Bryn’s first Scrabble!

Palermo skyline at dusk.

Alternator and onwards

Eventually (Saturday morning) the new alternator arrived. David fitted and tested it and we headed off east in search of cool sea breezes and a swim in clear water.