Sicily Palermo

Travelogue Italy 2: Sicily – Palermo

SICILY | PALERMO

18 June 2017

We arrived into a damp Palermo on the bus after an almost 3 hour ride from Catania. It’d been drizzling a bit as we approached and we were fearful we were in for a rainy day, which we could ill afford since we only had the afternoon to explore Sicily’s capital before moving on to Naples the following day.

Our fears were unfounded and even the small puddles the drizzle had left had already started to dry up.

With only a few hundred metres to our hotel from the bus depot (and, probably more importantly, not a taxi in sight), we moved swiftly on foot, our trolley cases clattering on the stone pavements.

Trying not to ruin the walking tour we’d planned for the day, we rushed past the few places of interest we passed en route, and arrived at the Eurostar Centrale Palace hotel.

Walking into the plush reception, we were pleasantly surprised at the calibre of hotel. We’d booked on the Emirates Rocketmiles website, which claimed the hotel to be 4*, but we’d assumed it to be an oversell based on the price. It was not! Heavenly high ceilings, shiny marble floors and glimmering chandeliers welcomed us as we waited to check in.

We were given our room key; the most impractical massive brass keyring with our room number embossed on it, adorned with a bunch of maroon rope tassels like you normally see on curtain restraints.

Our room was just as nice. And quite different to the Albatro Rooms that had been our home in Catania the previous three nights!

Being midday already we were keen to get started… With lunch.

Stepping out of our hotel we found we were located in a vibey shopping street and bee-lined for the first café for a traditional Palermo experience – a panini and arancini (crumbed and deep-fried rice balls, stuffed with mince and ham & cheese respectively). I would have had the baked pasta but *everything* has aubergine!

With a clearer head, having eaten, we were able to get our bearings and map our route.

Our hotel was indeed in prime position, on Via Vittorio Emanuele (the same name as the street the travel agent was in in Catania; mental note to look him up and see why he’s so famous), and we were sandwiched (in more ways than one, thanks to the lifesaving panini) between 2 of the sights on our map, the Quattro Canti and the Piazza Pretoria (there’s a sign for you!)

The Quattro Canti (4 Sides) or, officially, Piazza Vigliena is an octagonal crossing built in the early 1600s made up of four sides being streets and the other four near-identical curved facades of 4-storey Baroque buildings which contain fountains with statues of the seasons and the four Spanish kings of Sicily. The resultant effect is quite spectacular… And was complemented by the horse-and-carriage vendors stationed there looking for patrons.

Piazza Pretoria had a less grand reputation. In the late 1500s, the Senate of Palermo bought a fountain that had been intended for Florence. It was so big that they had to demolish some local homes to make space. Adorned with sixteen nude statues of nymphs and mermaids, the fountain earned the nickname “the Square of Shame”.

Quite the contrary, the epically impressive Cathedrale Di Palermo, consecrated in 1185, dominated a massive block and was really a sight to behold! With lava inlays, it was a very dramatic, magnificently adorned piece of architecture and we were starting to realise that if there was to be one word to describe Palermo, it was to be “impressive”!

Using a very simple tourist map, it was easy to negotiate the city and impossible to miss the landmarks on account of their scale. Those Romans didn’t muck about when it came to putting together a church / theatre / piazza – and there were several of each.

We’d round a corner and see an impressive building, consult the map and it was just the lowly local church. And when I say local, I mean micro-local since there was a church on just about every corner!

It worked very much to our benefit that we were touristing on a Sunday. The roads were quiet and there was ample opportunity to take good pics of the famous buildings that must be swamped during the week seeing as they are still in functional operation. Plenty of shops were still open though and the roads were buzzing with shoppers and socialisers out enjoying their Sunday, and the pleasure of the closed off pedestrian streets free from the crazy drivers.

We did accidentally happen upon some sort of major religious ceremony, with scores of groups parading in procession – with each having a heralded flag thing in front and everything – in front of a magnificent church with a sermon and hymns being belted out from loudspeakers mounted on the lamposts. There were even Scout and Girl Guides groups in attendance, so we knew they meant business.

We’d discovered the church parade while looking for our dinner restaurant – another reservation through The Fork – but we were disappointed to see that it was shut tight. Perhaps because of the parade, perhaps not, but it left us without a plan, so we took a seat at a sidewalk Café and – with the sun still high in the sky – did some people-watching, rich with content from the droves of passersby.

The benefit of our vantage point was observing the restaurant’s menu in real-life and, despite ourselves (since the only thing we’d agreed earlier on that we wouldn’t have for dinner was pizza), ended up ordering a 3-pork pizza (bacon, sausage and salami) that turned out to be quite delicious.