There's the gutted church whose Neo Classical facade seems untouched by disaster, and another church whose bell tower stands defiantly. A solitary survivor. One wonders why fate, or perhaps a Higher Authority, saw fit to all but destroy one church and spare the other. While Poggioreale is not what one would consider a tourist attraction, it draws a certain kind of attention among Sicilians. Very few of its buildings were built after 1960, though the public library is an exception.
Ghost towns seem frozen in time.
It's no illusion. A place like this makes you think about just what it is that makes buildings homes, what it is that makes a church a place of worship. And what it is that makes a group of buildings a community. Above all else, it's the people. Sicily is full of ruined castles and the remains of ancient cities, but Old Poggioreale seems more surreal than historical.