A glittering silence in Palermo To enter one of the world’s most unique small chapels head west along Palermo’s main street, Corso Vittorio Emanuele, with the Quattro Canti behind and walk under the exotic Porta Nuova, the city’s 16th century western gate, to the Norman Royal Palace, Palazzo Reale.

The main doorways of Polizzi Generosa, not unlike those of many European cities and villages, sit on the edge of the stone paved streets and most conceal a door within a door. They feel almost secret.

There are in fact often one or two tall, solid, almost ceremonial ones and then lower ones, slightly secretive and “profound.”

When I visited Selinunte, Sicily’s largest and most haunting archaeological park, it was spring 2013. I had spent a couple of nights before in an old baglio, called Spano, not far from Mazara del Vallo and drove the 30 or so kilometres eastward to Selinunte the next morning. 

Sicilian Easter: laments and prayers; slow processions and mournful music; sweet triumphant offerings; the renewal of spring; long lunch tables laden; and an Easter Monday picnic -La Pasquetta- filled with music, food and song.

And this year; an art exhibition, Via Crucis. La Pasion de Cristo, in Palermo’s Norman Palace where the story of Easter is captured movingly by the famed Columbian artist Botero.