We woke up to damp laundry and true to grandma form, my mom started to iron to help dry the clothes. I also used a hair dryer to dry the thicker cottons, seams, sleeves, and etc that needed a little help.
After storing our luggage, Justin ordered us an Uber to Bar Vabres. His friend’s cousin’s café where we enjoyed various arancini balls filled with beef, eggplant, and ham. We had coffees and cappuccinos and a tasty pastry filled with ricotta cheese. It wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but it sure felt local with the fish butcher serving up tuna steaks off a truck and lots of people visiting the café and sitting around. Our breakfast:
We then walked over to the Palermo Central train station to pick up a bus and watched the transit cop argue with an old man who hadn’t paid his fare. My mom said it felt very Italian and local once again.
After a few stops and walking for about 5 minutes, we arrived at Quattro Canti, considered the symbolic crossroads at the old center of the city:
There were so many school groups, so we knew we were in the right “touristy” area. We also saw Fontana Pretoria which wasn’t running, but it has nude statues of nymphs, humans, mermaids, and satyrs. It’s nicknamed the square of shame or Piazza della vergogna, representing the surrounding supposed historical corruption:
About a block away was Piazza Bellini which includes the Teatro Bellini, named after the composer Vincenzo Bellini:
In walking around old town and because we had no agenda, I followed a tour group into here which ended up being a library:
We then sat outside the Duomo or Cathedral and I explained to my mom there was a statue of Saint Rosalie, the patron saint of Palermo in the center of this plaza:
We decided to pop into the cathedral:
Another statue of what I presume to be Saint Rosalie:
We then continued our walk through Villa Bonanno and we decided to sit in a café for a respite from the Sicilian sun and some gelato and juice:
The park and café were in front of Palazzo dei Normanni (Palace of the Normans) which is the oldest European royal residence and the place of the Sicilian parliament:
We entered so we could see the Palatine Chapel which has Byzantine mosaics like we saw in Monreale yesterday:
Then we decided to take a bus after Justin bought tickets from a local tobacco shop and head to Piazza Verdi to visit Teatro Massimo, the largest opera house in Italy. It’s also known for the famous assassination scene in the Godfather:
Inside was a café where we enjoyed iced coffees, juice, and WiFi on their comfy couches. We eventually left and were slow moving as we were killing time during the day. We took a bus to La Vuccirìa which is a market / bazaar area, but was pretty much shutdown for the day. However, since it was a touristy area, we decided we would eat dinner here.
We chose Canopia where they had touristy foods, but we thoroughly enjoyed it. We had caprese salad, seafood carbonara, pasta alla Norma, fried seafood, and tiramisu. The fried seafood was so tasty with the caper mayonnaise, we ordered a second one. Collage below:
We returned to the hotel by bus and on the bus, we ran into a middle-aged Korean couple that had been on our plane from Malta to Catania and at Siracusa Archaeological Park. We finally had a conversation with them and learned they were from Toronto and taking the bus all over Sicily. I recognized the woman because she wore socks with her sandals.
In order to make our way to the Amalfi coast, we could have taken an overnight ferry or train or fly. But in flying, we would come into Naples and then go down the coast and have to come back up again. So I opted for the overnight train which I’ve never done before. We retrieved our bags from our hotel and Uber’ed to the train station. We will arrive in Salerno a little after 7 am and then we will make our way up the coast via rental car.
Here’s a map of the route and some pictures from our intercity night train. Justin protested both the photos and the experience:
So we’re settled in on our private triple bunk room on our overnight train which will take 11 hours. Buona Notte!
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