Where can you wander the same streets Archimedes, Plato and Cicero walked? Here in Siracusa! If you don’t know Archimedes other than shouting: Eureka!!! he was a genius, he invented the catapult, the magnifying glass, and many other things.

One of the great sights in Siracusa is it’s Duomo, mainly because as our local tour guide told us, it expresses the history of Siracusa in just one place, from it’s early rise as a Greek Temple to honor Athena to it’s current state as a christian church, with Greek pillars, Norman traits, and Baroque façade. It really is a beautiful hodgepodge!  

Near il Duomo is the Church of St. Lucia, which host Caravaggio's "The Burial of Santa Lucia" it's really worth seeing if you have the time.We also visited the Archeological Park of the Neapolis (New City), which has a Greek Theater, the second largest in the Mediterranean  with seats for 15k spectators. It is also the only Greek theater that is monolithic, carved out of one mountain. It also hosts a Roman Amphitheater, which is one of the largest in the world. The Roman Amphitheater was made with part of the Greek Theater, apparently the Romans were the jealous kind.

What a wonderful day in Taormina! I'm not sure if it is because the weather took a turn for the best ( I'm sure thanks to all the good energy my BFF is sending my way and maybe because all the praying while at the convent in Cefalú) or maybe because it's off season and the town is not super crowded. 
One thing I now for sure, I've known this for a long time, it pays off to get up early in the morning to watch the sunrise on a glorious day. The view of Mount Etna at Sunrise was breath taking...

There's really more to Cefalú than my adventures at the convent, which in reality did not turnout to be that bad.
Cefalú is a fisherman's village of 18,000 habitants that still maintains a medieval charm. 

Walking distance form the convent you kind find a stairway that leads you to the Lavatoio (the laundry) a site that dates back to the 9th Century where the locals use to do their laundry.

Another great place is Piazza Duomo, where you can chillax and people watch , have a caffé, and later wonder inside the Norman Cathedral to wonder at the magnificent byzantine mosaic portrait of Cristo Pantocrator, which so far is the most beautiful depiction of this image that I've seen.

Cefalú has a small museum that houses a Sicilian collection from the Baron Mandralisca. One of the most important pieces in the museum is a Portrait that has been attributed to Sicily's most famous Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, called "Portrait of an Unknown Man". A nice little collection for a 
3 euro admission.
If the weather is good you can hike up to La Rocca for some outstanding views, which unfortunately I can't vouch for because it rained a lot while I was there.

The first night at the convent was very restful, a comfy bed, lots of blankets as I decided to sleep with the window open in order to listen to the waves crashing against the rocks, so comfortable that I overslept. Good thing that we had a free day.
Our day started with a lots of rain, not a good sign for the Carnavale parade this evening. On the plus side our guide had informed us that if it rained we will have a happy hour at the Convent. Did I hear right? Is it wrong that I'm secretly hoping that it rains so we can have happy hour at the Convent? This mean actually being able to drink without having to sneak in the alcohol like we did in high school?? OMG how far have we come!!
A short morning stroll around Cefalu, a visit to the local museum and a visit to it's beautiful Duomo to see the portrait of Cristo Pantocrater (Christ Creator of all) this Byzantine mosaic is by far the most beautiful depiction of Christ that I've seen. Back to the story at hand, Fat Tuesday at the Convent... The rain continued throught the day it was obvious that we will have happy hour at the convent. The kids that go to school at the convent were not able to have their parade either. That means party at the convent! Loud music, confetti, costumes, wow this looks promising. If they let the kids party this hard there's hope for us!!!
After a little nap and another quick stroll around town, I headed back to the hotel for our happy hour, I was determined to get Mother Superior to have some wine with me. No such luck, although I was able to get my picture taken with her when she came to check on us.
The nuns were nice, as I said, Mother Superior came to say hi (although I'm sure she was checking on us), then another one of the nuns brought us oranges and home made chiacchiere, which are typical Sicilian cookies made during Carnavale. Everything was going great, there was a big flat screen TV in the room where we were at, I was already planning to charm the Madre into letting us stay in the room watch TV at least until the 11p curfew.....
..... no such luck, suddenly our guide comes in with an announcement: " the mother wants us out in 5 minutes" WTF??!! it's freaking Fat Tuesday, we are just getting started, there are at least 3 more bottles of wine to be had, it's not even 8pm yet!!! The nuns have done it again, just as in High School they take all the joy out of you in a single moment. And what is worse, we had to clean the room, well mainly because I was afraid the Mother was going to be mad if we left a mess. Yep, good old Catholic guilt.
At least I got to chat with her about the Pope resigning, she's sad because he really can't do it any more, his body is giving up, I beg to differ but I still needed a place to stay and was not taking the chance to let her know what I thought.

Palermo really surprised me, I guess i was totally wrong when I thought going to Sicily and visiting Palermo was going to be like being in a small quaint town, not a big city busting with energy. No, I didn't want to read anything about it before I went. Yes, I knew it is the capital of Sicily.