Walking Around Palermo (with Going Into Places): Part Tre

This is a statue in the Archaeology Museum of a lion attacking a bull.
Lucky for the bull, the lion has no head. Talk about an answered prayer.

I'm doing a loop around and through the historic core of Palermo. Next stop: the archaeological museum, Museo Archeologico Regionale Antonino Salinas.

When you enter, you first see this fountain. I assumed the turtles were fake. They were immobile. But then I noticed one of them swimming:

The turtles most definitely are real.

As are the archaeological treasures.

The collection comes most from long-buried Phoenician and, later, Greek, cities/settlements in Sicily.

Sicily was first settled by the Phoenicians. Palermo was founded by the Phoenician. This is Phoenician territory. That makes sense. The Phoenicians were seafarers. An island in the middle of the Mediterranean would have strategic significance.

But, then, long before Rome crushed the Phoenician colony of Carthage in the Punic Wars, Greece came to Sicily. Here's Zeus. for example:

And here's another Zeus.

Sicily was an important part of the Greek sphere, the Magna Graecia, or "Greater Greece." Syracuse (the one on the east side of Sicily) (not the one in New York) was one of the biggest and most important cities in the Greek world. Sicily was Greek long before it was Italian.

The museum is somewhat small. This garden area separates the front of the museum from the back.

And in the back is where we get to the heart and soul of this small museum's collection. These are the remains of the long-gone Greek city of Selinunte, on Sicily's southern shore, close to the western point of the triangular-shaped Sicily.

This section consists of fragments of buildings from Selinunte. Putting them in the museum makes it much easier to see than if they were way in the air. Here are three scenes from Greek mythology.

The middle section is Perseus cutting off the head of Medusa. Let's have a closer look.

On the right is a scene with Heracles (to use his Greek name) (you know him better as the Roman "Hercules") carrying two robbers. 

Here is another piece of a building from Selinunte.

The clearest and best defined section, the second one from the right, depicts an interesting scene.

You may recognize this (or not) as Actaeon being torn apart by dogs as punishment for having gazed up the goddess Artemis while she was naked. Kind of an extreme punishment for only catching a glimpse of nudity by accident, but those were the rules back then.

After leaving the museum and walking back to my hotel along Via Roma, I saw this white horse pulling a hansom cab.

The horse looked like White Abarrio, who was my choice to win the Kentucky Derby. White Abarrio finished sixteenth in the field of 20. I guess this would be a viable career option for him.

I ended up at the Vucciria, a famous street market in the historic district of Palermo.

I did not eat here, despite the fresh meats.

And fresh vegetables.

Instead, I waited until supper time to eat at the Quattro Mani, which was a short walk from my hotel.

I has the squid and octopus salad as my antipasti.

It was very good. The squid and octopus were obviously very fresh. Truth be told, however: the octopus salad in Croatia is better.

For my main course I had something called "swordfish rolls," which was a Sicilian variation of the German dish rouladen, only with swordfish.

The dish was excellent. Sicily is known for its swordfish. And this is the first time I've ever had swordfish in any form other than a swordfish steak.

The dessert was absolutely incredible.

Strawberries in lemon cream. Simple, but amazing. The strawberries were sweet and had the perfect texture. Not crunchy. Not mushy. Just strawberry. And the lemon flavored cream was the perfect accompaniment.

Time to walk back to the hotel through the dark and wet streets of Palermo.

La Passeggiata, the evening stroll that Sicilians make through their town, was still happening, although winding down.