Luckydog Adventures: Finally, Italy! Er, Sicily!

Early morning view from our terrace in Palermo.

This is the fourth episode in the series of our trip to Jordan and Italy. Find the first here, and the second, about Petra, here. The blog on Wadi Rum is here.

Is Sicily part of Italy? Legally, yes, although I’m not sure all Sicilians think so. (Nor all Italians, for that matter!) But as tourists, these questions do not concern us. The important thing is, we were there!

It was a sort of a long and winding road to Palermo, Sicily, starting from Amman, Jordan. As we mentioned in this blog here, we flew out of Amman at 3AM, to Athens, Greece. Then we flew to Rome (the one in Italy), after which we took a final flight to Palermo. For reasons I don’t understand, at every stop we needed to clear customs to get on the next plane. (For those unfamiliar with international travel, generally while transiting—changing planes in one country on the way to another—passengers are kept in a special, controlled-access lounge, eliminating the need to go through the unpleasant and occasional down right annoying security process.)

So anyway, three security checks in one day, plus waiting in airport lounges, made us very glad to arrive at our final destination, the airport in Palermo. Which then required a half-hour bus ride to the city.

But that part was not unpleasant. We eagerly stared out the bus windows to the Tyrrhenian Sea (as that part of the Mediterranean is called) as we moved toward the city. The next puzzle, of course, was figuring out the local transportation to get from where the bus left us to our rented apartment. We could take a taxi—and often do—but there is a certain satisfaction to figuring out and using the local system.

Our terrace in Palermo. That figure on the wall—three bent legs with a woman's face in the center—is called the Trinacria and is the symbol of Sicily... because of the three corners of the island? No one seems to know!

We were soon in our apartment, and it was more than satisfactory. Three light bright bedrooms, a huge terrace overlooking the city, and located in the interesting (which is to say, older) part of Palermo.

The Trinacria we bought as a souvenir of Sicily. Yes, the lady has a moustache. Why?
No one seems to know!

As we said above, Sicily is legally part of Italy, but it has its own history which goes ‘way back. Lots of settlements came and went, including Phoenician and Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Vandal and Ostrogoth, Byzantine Greek, Aghlabid, Fatimid, Kalbid, Norman, Aragonese and Spanish (and thanks to Wikipedia for that list). I don’t even recognize half of those names!

Anyway, The Phoenicians were there in the 11^th century BCE, followed by (sooner or later) the Greeks.

In fact, the Greeks really took to Sicily, and it became an important part of Magna Graecia (greater Greece, referring to the Greek colonies on and around the Italian peninsula). Today the most extensive and best preserved Greek ruins are in Sicily (which, of course, we visited!)

Suffice to say, there is no end of interesting things to visit—and think about—in Sicily.

Palermo

We liked Palermo, the capital and most important city. There was a feeling of dark decay coming from neglect, but the street art—graffiti—showed a robust art culture. Sure, places were run down and maybe not so appealing, but people went about their business with an energy. We got the impression that this state of affairs, these dark streets and torn-up buildings, was considered just temporary, soon to be gone. Never mind that it’s been that way since WWII, at least!

A market in Palermo. As expected, everything is incredibly fresh and crisp!

We share Second Breakfast in Palermo's Piazzo Caracciolo, toasting our arrival with Mimosas and arancini, deep-fried rice ball filled with cheese or meat.
(Paula's photo!)

Street art: A wary looking shark on a roll-up door.

A grocer sets out his vegetables in Palermo.

Apartments on a side street in Palermo.

More street art.

There's plenty of churches in Palermo (it's Italy, after all!), but this one we found particularly interesting, with Moorish domes: the 12th Century Chiesa de San Cataldo, seen from Piazza Bellini.

Teatro Massino, Italy's largest opera house

Fontana Pretoria, known as the Fountain of Shame, exposing more body parts than most; the nuns in the nearby convent used to sneak over at night and chisel bits off the statues.

And finally, a nod to the excellent—and often surprising—food we found in Palermo:

Paula and Sue exclaim over a pizza with sweet, yellow Datterini tomatoes (and mounds of soft creamy burrata mozzarella!)

Monreale

The Norman Kings of Sicily chose this small town in the hills above Palermo for their hunting resort, and in 1174 built a church. The town's real claim to fame—and the church's—are the extensive Byzantine glass mosaics that cover the interior, done by both local and Venetian masters in the 12^th and 13^th Centuries.

We took a day trip to Monreale (there’s a local bus that does the hard part of climbing the steep hill). We were stunned: the entire church interior is covered in gold glass tile mosaics! And, many of the decorations contain Moorish themes.