The official travel thread

There are two places in Sicily I personally would want visit.

  • The town of Corleone because of the godfather.
  • The town of Cefalù where the ruins of Aleister Crowley´s Abbey of Thelema are(still untouched today as I understand).
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Out of curiosity:

I’ve just noticed that, while “Corleone” in italian means “lionheart” which means “brave”, the sicilian name of that town is “cunigghiuni”, which means “big rabbit”. Now I have to explain that “rabbit” in italian means “fearful”, just as like “chicken” in english. Odd, isn’t it?

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So like the opposite?

Maybe Mario Puszo thought that was funny?

That is odd! Maybe the two groups of settlers who came up with these names had very different views on the importance/worth of the town, or something like that.

Yes, like the opposite.
I don’t think it’s an idea of him… the town was home of a big mafia family long before his screenplay…
Anyway, checking Wikipedia it seems to be casual: the italian Corleone and the sicilian Cunigghiuni probably are similar in sound to an arabian word which means something completely different, and probably that’s the origin of the name of the town.

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I´m not sure did they film the second movie´s flashback scenes in the actual town or is that somewhere different?

According to Wikipedia, it was filmed in three other locations in Sicily: Forza d’Agrò, SAvoca and Motta Camastra (never heard about these places before)

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I’ve been in this aquatic park 12 years ago, but I didn’t remember there were Loom seagulls…

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Ask them about Loom!

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Hit them with a wooden plank from the bench!

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Leaving from Naples’ harbour

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Mazara del Vallo: beach

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Mazara del Vallo: a glimpse

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Favignana Island: Cala Azzurra

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Favignana Island: Bue Marino

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Old town of Erice

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Walls and towers of Erice

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Delicious street food (arancine) in Trapani


Templar church of San Cataldo, Palermo

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Cathedral, Palermo


Dinner by the sea, Palermo (bucatini alla Palermitana, e rigatoni melanzane e spada)

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Is that Gagh in the last picture? It looks like Gagh…

Wow, these look great! Maybe I’ll take a trip there some day :smiley:
Can you pick a highlight of your visit?

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And it tastes like Gagh, too! :wink:

Ok, I’ll do it in a couple of days, since you asked so Nicely… :stuck_out_tongue:

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We watched it on the top of our guest house in Sicily the 27th of July.
Anyway in the early morning of the 27th it was almost all red already:
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Ahhh, that is what I would have needed. A horizon! :man_facepalming:

And this:

(Or a proper camera, but I’m not a fan of lugging around bulky items on vacation or otherwise, as much as I would like the additional image quality that might come with it. But then, with good composition or a bit of luck you can take great photos with any device.)

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Here I am:

having reached the Naples’ Harbour, at sunset we embarked with the car on a ship for Palermo.


The morning after we went west to our guest house in the countryside of Trapani via highway (a bit less than a couple of hours). We spent the afternoon on a local beach a mile away from home.
Then we went south alongside the coast to visit Mazara del Vallo (beaches and lovely town on the sea).
Another day we went to Trapani, and from there we took a boat to Favignana in the Egadi Islands. It’s a wonderful island that you can visit by renting a bike just after you arrive in the local harbour. Bikes are very handy and cycling is awesome on the main roads that are in a good state (I also love cycling). We visited the southern half, the most wild one, and some beautiful beaches like Cala Azzurra (no services, just a bar on the street that leads there) and Lido Burrone (well served), rocky bays like Bue Marino or Cala Rossa. we spent a whole day there.
We visited also old Erice, a town which still has his medieval shape, with a long history dating back from the Phoenicians (same populations as Carthaginians), and like most of the Sicily went through different stages under Arabians and then Normans.
We spent other time on lovely beaches between Trapani and Marsala. They were beaches with a fantastic warm water, even if there was an abnormal presence of jelly fishes of the species of Pelagia Noctulica.

An evening we went to Trapani, the principal city of this western province, where we were delighted by the streets by the sea, very ventilated among their historical palaces, and ate some really good street food known as Arancine (little oranges), balls of rice with zafferano, with a core of meat and tomato sauce, all covered by bread crumbs and cooked in oil.
We spent the last day discovering Palermo, the principal city and harbour of Sicily, even if the region has a polycentric nature, since no city or region overtakes the others, and they are pretty well balanced in terms of population and services. Palermo is an interesting book if you read it. From the Phoenician origin attested in the historical centre with its typical shape and streets, the Roman period with agrarian aristocracy, the city and its region lived a wonderful period under the Arabians which carried out reforms distributing land to little owners, pumping up the economy and stimulating economic and social progress, which slowly ended under the Normans and after the last medieval peak with Frederick II, which leaded to the restoration of land aristocracy and the Modern Era.

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Did you find that there were more traces from one stage / time period in particular, or was there a mixture of different buildings and structures from a few time periods?