About ..::Cefalù::.. Sicily
Cefalù is an ancient city in the province of Palermo, located on the northern coast of Sicily, Italy on the Tyrrhenian Sea about 75 km east from the provincial capital and 185 km west of Messina. The town has about 14,000 inhabitants, and is one of the major tourist attractions in the region. It has Roman baths, an ancient cathedral, marvellous beaches in the zone.
Cefalù does not appear in history before 396 BC, and seems to have owed its importance mainly to its naturally strong position. The only ancient remains on the mountain are those of a small building in good polygonal work (a style of construction very rare in Sicily), consisting of a passage on each side of which a chamber opens. The doorways are of finely-cut stone, and of Greek type, and the date, though uncertain, cannot, from the careful jointing of the blocks, be very early.
On the summit of the promontory are extensive remains of a Saracenic castle. The town's fortifications formerly extended to the shore, on the side where the modern town now is, in the form of two long walls protecting the port. There are remains of a wall of massive rectangular blocks of stone at the modern Porta Garibaldi on the south.
The new town was founded at the foot of the mountain, by the shore, by Roger II of Sicily in 1131, and the cathedral was begun in the same year in a style of Norman architecture which would be more accurately called Sicilian Romanesque. The exterior is well preserved, and is largely decorated with interlacing pointed arches; the windows also are pointed. On each side of the façade is a massive tower of four storeys. The round-headed Norman portal is worthy of note. A semi-circular apse is set into the east end wall. Its strengthening counterforts that work like buttresses, are shaped as paired columns to lighten their aspect. The groined vaulting of the roof is visible in the choir and the right transept, while the rest of the church has a wooden roof. Fine cloisters, coeval with the cathedral, adjoin it.
The interior of the cathedral was restored in 1559, though the pointed arches of the nave, borne by ancient granite columns, are still visible: and the only mosaics preserved are those of the apse and the last bay of the choir: they are remarkably fine specimens of the Byzantine art of the period (1148) and, though restored in 1859-1862, have suffered much less than those at Palermo and Monreale from the process. The figure of the Pantocrator gracing the apse is especially fine.
thanks to wikipedia.org
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Cefalù, una piccola cittadina di età normanna a circa 70 Km da Palermo.
Il nome della cittadina di Cefalù deriva dal greco KEFALOIDION o KEPHALOIDIOS il cui significato è legato alla forma caratteristica della Rocca che la sovrasta assomigliante, appunto, ad una piccola testa.
Sembra che Cefalù abbia origini molto antiche e che sia stata fondata nel V secolo a. C. dai Greci.
Non ci sono notizie precise riguardo le origini di Cefalù ma si ritiene che la città sia stata fondata dai Greci o dai Punici nel V secolo a. C. e che fu conquistata dai Romani nel 254 a.C. entrando a far parte, così, della provincia sicula.
Durante il Medioevo, Cefalù, fu conquistata dagli Arabi nell’858 e fece parte dell’emirato arabo sino a quando non venne liberata dai Normanni.
La città venne riedificata ad opera di Ruggero II nel 1131.
Durante il Risorgimento la storia di Cefalù si lega alle vicende della Sicilia e poi dell’Italia nella lotta contro i Borboni.
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Per raggiungerci in aereo:
- Atterrare all'aeroporto Falcone Borsellino - Percorrere l'autostrada in direzione Palermo e poi in direzione Messina (A20) fino all'uscita Cefalù Ovest
Per raggiungerci in nave:
- Fino al porto di Palermo, poi l'autostrada A20 in direzione Messina fino all'uscita Cefalù Ovest
Per raggiungerci in auto:
- Da Palermo percorrere l'autostrada A20 fino a Cefalù Ovest - Da Messina percorrere l'autostrada A20 per Palermo e poi la SS113 fino a Cefalù.
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