The port in Palermo is quite central. We disembarked from the ferry and joined a short queue for immigration. Curiously, the whole process seemed considerably more relaxed than the document checks at the other end (although now that I think about it, it's regularly the case that airlines are much fussier about passengers following the letter of the immigration law than are the officers whose actual job it is to enforce the rules. The ferry had arrived at 06:00 or something like that and our Airbnb was right by the port so we were actually home, unpacked and ready to explore the city early in the morning.
Palermo was one of those cities that I fell in love with almost immediately. It's just got everything. We did almost no planning, and little "formal" sightseeing during our two days there, but managed to have a fabulous time all the same.
First priority was to revel in no longer being under the strictures of Ramadan (and to ease ourselves into Italian culture) by having a morning coffee outdoors. From there it was on to explore the centre of the city. Central Palermo is mostly made up of brown and black water stained buildings, made pretty and lovely by the balconies, wrought iron grilles and brightly coloured laundry hanging out above the narrow streets.
On top of these it's studded with individual gems that you just sort of stumble across as you wander around the streets and alleys. Some of these are renaissance era plazas, churches and theatres, which are okay, but aren't generally my favourite things architecturally (though one of the churches had an interior jam packed with polychrome marble decoration, which was pretty impressive). The very coolest things for me however were the Arabo-Norman palaces and churches. See, Sicily was ruled by the North African Fatimid and Kalbid dynasties for almost two hundred years in the 10th and 11th centuries. It was returned to Christian rule when it was conquered by the Normans in 1071. They brought with them their own architectural style, but most of the island's people and artisans had absorbed that of their Arab predecessors. Which meant that the new style was sort of a cross between the two. Meaning that a lot of Palermo's grand buildings from the 11th and 12th century are a mix of Arabic and Viking. How cool is that!?!
The other, much less obvious gems of Palermo were the culinary ones. Wandering around a residential suburb full of apartment blocks we stopped and had a canollo (delicious rolled crispy pastry filled with sweet mascarpone and cream) and a café d'orzo. One of the best "coffees" we had in Italy, so it came as something of a surprise when we learned that it was not coffee at all, but an infusion of roasted barley!
Palermo is full of fabulous street markets that feel almost more middle eastern than European. They sell all sorts of goods, but we picked up some of the best, sweetest cherry tomatoes I've ever had at one, though we didn't quite have the appetite or cooking facilities for the huge whole swordfish that appeared at pretty much every fish seller.
And there was Taverna Azzurra. Ah, Taverna Azzurra. We stumbled across it on our first afternoon in Palermo. It sat in a narrow street (an alley almost) just off a small piazza that was full of fun looking open-air restaurants. And it pretty much instantly joined the list of my favourite bars in the world. They had cheap beer (€2 for a 660ml bottle of the entirely serviceable Moretti lager), glass carboys in water-cooler type configuration that poured vino Zibbibo (a dark golden Italian sweet-ish wine that reminded me of a medium Viño de Jerez) and a couple of other speciality wines.
Taverna Azzurra doesn't really have seats, inside. Rather, customers congregate in the alley outside making it a lively and cheerful spot from around 13:00 until late into the night.
And of course there's the pizza. Taverna Azzurra produces the best pizza I've ever had. There are mini pizzas, calzones and panini in the cabinet for €2-3 that they'll warm up in the Panini press for you (if you're not lucky enough to get one that's not straight out of the oven as we did with our first) or whole pizzas made yo order from €4. The base is crispy on the outside and chewy inside with just enough charring to give it flavour without being burnt. The tomato sauce is fresh tasting and delicious. And while the cheese and toppings are good, they're really just there to back up the perfectly done basics. They may be slightly heretical by being made in Sicila rather than Napoli, and in a gas oven instead of a wood fired one, but if I couldn't eat a different pizza for the rest of my life, I think I'd be pretty okay with that.
Having dispensed with the dining, I can move on to our one bit of formal sightseeing in Palermo (which might otherwise have put you kind readers off our lunch). The Capuchin Crypts. In the late 1700s, the cemetery at Palermo's Capuchin monastery was running out of space, so the monks began to inter their brothers in the cellars beneath. The cool dry air and careful treatment by the monks led to the corpses mummifying. The plan (insofar as there was one) was for only monks to be laid to rest there, but somehow or other the monastery basement became a popular place for the wealthy and distinguished of Palermo to be "buried". For over a century the catacombs were expanded and expanded to make room for more and more guests. They were left in lifelike poses, fully clothed (sometimes having their clothes changed regularly!) for as long as the families could pay for their maintenance. By the time the final body was laid to rest there (the remarkably well preserved baby Rosalia Lombardo, who died in 1920) there were around 8000 corpses in the catacombs, with over 1200 of them being mummified and remaining "on display" for friends and family (and later, morbidly curious tourists) to visit.
There were, quite reasonably, no photos allowed. But the walk through the cool, dusty smelling catacombs was a fascinating, if slightly spooky, look into Palermo's more recent history.
When it came time to leave Palermo we were sad to say goodbye. We'd spent a mere two days in the there, and in that short time it has become one of my favourite small cities in Europe. But we had limited time in Italy (our plans were already beginning to press the 90 days in a 180 day period that Sarah was allowed in the Schengen zone) and there was much more of Sicily to see.
This began with a beautiful train trip along the narrow coastal plain to the east of Sicily, and then across beautiful springtime in the rugged and isolated mountains that are at Sicily's heart as we spent three hours making our way from the island's north coast down to the south and the city of Agrigento.
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