Palermo


7th July 2018.
This was our first trip to the beautiful island of Sicily. I do hope you read the prologue of the trip.
We were on the flight from Rome to Palermo.
Harish had booked the front row seats for more leg space and as soon as the flight took off, the budget airline staff started selling things like perfume and toiletries!
Once the pilot announced the flight ready for landing the staff sat down and since the steward knew only English, I could understand the conversation he had with his female co-worker. She was thinking of quitting as she had to pay taxes in 2 countries - Ireland and Italy.

The first sight of Sicily caught my attention. The water was so clear!


The airport was very small and beautiful.

We were to land in Palermo, pick up a car and drive through Sicily; drive south to see Segesta, Selinunte; drive east to Agrigento, Ragusa, Noto and drive along the coastline through Syracusa to Catania. From Catania we were to go to Naples.
So, it was 2 full days and 2 nights in Palermo.

From Palermo airport, we took a bus into town.
Our B&B Attico 33 was 5 minutes walk from Politeama square bus stop . Francesco, is a tax lawyer who is married and settled in Palermo.In the apartment where he stays, he has converted 4 rooms into a B&B.
We were allocated the "Marina" room. It was so clean. This B&B is on the top most floor of the apartment building...

After a quick clean up, we met Francesco who advised us on places to see and have good food. There was a guide who had very good reviews, but was proving to be very elusive. He tried calling him up for our sake.
We were too tired after all the travel and the Sicilian sun was beating down. So we decided to have lunch. There was a place just opposite the B&B called Sapurito. We were the first guests that afternoon.






The lunch was so heavy!!

In the evening we decided to explore Palermo.
First stop was Theatro Massimo. A band was preparing to play and many people were vying for seats.

We were heading to see Quattro Canti.

We saw this handsome car...and when I was photographing it, the owner came rushing...I got worried....but he just wanted to know if he must pose with his car!!

This is an Italian version of an orange juice stall...So different from ours!! :D

Spaghetti ice-cream?

 Loads of fried fish....

Legal Cannabis!

Shop selling Sicilian speciality- Aranchini

Shops selling Marzipan fruits...

An Indian woman??!!

And then we reached the junction!


Near this Junction is the Fontana Pretoria or fountain of shame...thus called because of all the nude statues.



Near this fountain is a grand Sicilian Baroque church - Chiesa di San Giuseppe dei Padri Teatini. When we went in a mass was going on. So, we left soon.


Palermo is the Capital of Sicily and is the main seat of the UNESCO World Heritage Site for Arab-Norman Palermo and the Cathedral Churches of Cefalù and Monreale. 

The sun was setting and Francesco had told us the best place to watch this was very near the Quattro Canti...a place called Seven Restaurant and Lounge Bar, located on the top floor of Hotel Ambasciatori. The sun set was amazing....and the way the town got lighted...



From here, we went to have a hearty dinner at Osteria Ballaro...

Ordering food is very easy as the choices are very limited..


I ordered the Mini Riccotini 

And the Aubergine pie...

Dessert was too sweet..

We walked back and the street was completely decorated with lights.
July 15 is the Feast Day of the the Patron Saint of Palermo -Santa Rosalia.

Acrobats were performing on the road...

But what really caught our attention was this...A homeless man sleeping on the street hugging his dog.


8th July 2018. Sunday.

I had made a schedule which would allow us to see most of the sights in Palermo. We had relaxed the day before and it was time the trip started.

Our first stop was the Ballaro Market. My husband exports fish to Italy and on this trip we visited the fish markets in all places we stayed.



Since the feast was in a week, the festivities were going on...We caught a band performing and walking through the market street.

At Ballaro market, we saw a young boy singing and selling his wares! It is Palermo's busiest street market...and even here I found Indians/Bangladeshis and Pakistanis. I used my Hindi speaking skill to strike a chord with one shop keeper and used the toilet!

There were so many snails for sale in the market.

And after walking through the worst part of Palermo, 



We made our way into...Palazzo dei Normanni.
It is the home of Sicily's regional parliament, which is a 9th century Palace actually.
We got ourselves a audio guide and started exploring the beautiful Parliament Palace.






There were Chinese rooms..

And lovely paintings on the walls...


And gold plated walls with eastern (Indian / Chinese) influenced artwork!!


There was an art exhibition included in our tour....


And then we joined the queue to enter the Church. This is a very old church and the insides glow from all the gold!!


This is a church dedicated to St.Peter and St.Paul.


Such intricate carvings!!



Next stop was the Cathedral of Palermo.
I had read that we would be granted access to the top of the church and thus we bought tickets for this.



My husband hardly smiles and when I asked another tourist to take a photo, his son started enacting my husband's expression....Obviously, I laughed hard and my husband smiled.



The inside was not as great as the outside. We had seen better churches in Rome and Venice.


Next we went to see a very small church....Chiesa di San Cataldo.. an example of Arab-Norman architecture, especially because of the three small Arab-style domes. It has mosaic floors. It's very small and empty, and entry is 2 euro for the ticket. 
Here a young girl - Matilda- has been buried.




We really wanted to see Monreale, a town 8 kms away which also had a beautiful church.
The only problem was we had no car and the buses from the bus stop was every 90 minutes - very infrequent. 
We had reached the bus stop (Indipendenza Pisani) near Porta Nuova...and had missed the bus 10 minutes ago. Waiting another 80 minutes was not very exciting. That was when we decided we will get 'taken for a ride'...Literally and otherwise.
A "Toni" met us and we struck a deal for E50 for us to go to Monreale, see the Catacombe dei Cappuccini and get dropped back at our B&B. The moment we entered the car "Toni" started acting strange. Suddenly he forgot we had to see the Catacombes, dropped back and started saying we had only 15 minutes etc. He wanted more money and basically started irritating us. BUT, he had no idea we come from the land of Bargainers.
We hardly enjoyed the ride up the hill to see the church. Once we reached, he got tougher. He demanded 50% of the agreed amount and said he would wait only 20 minutes. We did not pay him as we were sure he would leave and said 30 minutes wait time. Harish was an epitome of politeness and sternness.

What a wonderful church!!
 And the view from the roof top.....Wow!




We rushed back to "Toni" and  he continued his tricks. This time it had become a sob story about how he took some Danish people to Monreale in the morning and how they did not pay him. 

We coaxed him to take us to see the Catacombes.. a burial place...a macabre tourist attraction. The catacombs contain about 8000 corpses and 1252 mummies and the most famous attraction is the well preserved body of 2 year old Rosalia. Photography is prohibited, so I have none and am happy to have none.

Once we got back into the car with "Toni", he showed us some whites and said, these are the people who dd not pay him and cursed them We are pretty sure they are some random innocent tourists!! And anyway we had had enough of him and told him to drop us off near Porta Nuova and not our B&B. He readily agreed and Harish tried explaining to him about his responsibility towards the tourists and how people like him give Sicily a bad reputation. Surely it fell on deaf ears. 



We were extremely tired by now and decided we will sit somewhere and watch the world go by..
and guess what passed by?
A huge protest march...of communists, world without frontiers and some Sicilian thing...



(One of the languages is Tamil!!)

We were too tired to wait to for dinner time. So we  bought take-aways of Aranchini and cannolini.





We reached back our room and Francesco asked if we had seen the air show..Since we hadn't, he shared some pictures with us.



The next day we were to leave Palermo at 8.15 am to catch the bus to the airport. Francesco had a deal with some Taxi company, we think, as he insisted we take the cab to airport which would cost Euro 40. Bus costs about Euro 16. After our experience with "Tony", we preferred the bus. How I hated to look at all Sicilians like crooks after my money!

Anyway, we mentioned to Francesco we were taking the 8 am bus and needed breakfast at 7.30 am.

We remember our head hitting the pillow..
The take-away was not eaten.

The next day we were driving to Segesta and Selinunte.







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