Sicily - Italy - page 555

NIGHTLIFE
Palermo's 19th-century opera house, Teatro Massimo (Piazza Teatro Massimo;
% 091-6053111; www.teatromassimo.it; adults € 3, seniors and students € 2;
guided tours every half-hour Tues-Sun 10am-3:30pm), dominates the cityscape.
It's been a controversial site, ravaged by corruption and nearly razed during World
War II, but today it's a well-respected institution, adequately (if not spectacularly)
serving those with cultural tastes. Performances are second tier, as few big name
performers make it to Sicily, and the sets and performances are several rungs down
from what you'd find in Naples, Venice, or Milan. Tickets start around € 19 and
go up to

100. Outside in the courtyard, a lively mix of buskers give entertaining
outdoor street performances, vying with one another for the crowd's loose change.
A SIDE TRIP FROM PALERMO
Just 8km (5 miles) from the city center is the day-trip destination to end all day-
trip destinations, the magnificent Cattedrale di Monreale (Piazza Duomo,
Monreale; % 091-6404413; free admission, recommended audioguide € 4; daily
8am-6pm), one of the most spectacularly mosaiced churches in Christendom. You
thought St. Mark's in Venice was over the top? Wait until you enter this giant
complex, the last of the Norman Sicilian cathedrals--an amalgam of different
styles, with elements from Muslim, Byzantine, and Romanesque architecture
added over the years. Inside, a whopping 6,340 sq. m (68,243 sq. ft.) of gold
mosaics are plastered over every conceivable space, from the arched apse ceiling to
the sanctuary aisles. Of special note are the luminous scenes from the Old

€

Mafia Tours of Corleone
Just 60km (38 miles) out of Palermo, toward the center of the island, is the
famous Mafia haven of Corleone. Seeing the sheer number of construction
cranes that dot the city sky, it's not hard to believe that organized crime
is still an integral part of everyday life here. Many of the city center's build-
ings are under scaffolding, which in Sicily usually means that money is
being laundered through bogus construction contracts. But you aren't here
to linger; you're here to visit the Mafia museum, officially called the Centro
Internazionale Documentazione sulle Mafie e sul Movimento Antimafia
(Palazzo Provenzano, Via Orfanotrofio; % 091-8463655; free admission;
Mon-Sat 9am-1pm and 3-7pm, Sun 9am-1pm), which is a serious look at
Italy's fight against organized crime. There are reams of court documents,
displays of bullets from famous hits, and an uncomfortable number of
bloody pictures of arrests, murders, and maimings. It's worth coming here
to understand Italy's struggle to stamp out the Mafia. The fact that this
museum even exists in what is widely known as the heart of Mafia country
is a testament to the fact that the struggle is getting results. At the time
of this writing, the Mafia museum was under a veil of scaffolding, too.