Monreale

At our farm stay, Miriam served us a lovely breakfast outside which included fresh pear juice, crudo ham, and fried eggs that came from her boyfriend’s farm which has ten hens. We all agreed, the food was so fresh and natural, and we enjoyed our one night stay.

One of our options for today was to visit Segesta Archaeological park which has a temple and theater. I picked the farm stay as it was close, but also because it had a family room with three beds. But as you wind through the farm roads to the main road, you can actually see the temple, so we opted to enjoy the view and skip the visit. Some of those photos are from yesterday as we enjoyed the view yesterday as well:







In skipping the temple visit, our agenda was to visit Monreale which is a town on Monte Caputo, about 30 minutes outside of Palermo and about 1 hour from Segesta. Photos from our drive including this mini-Mercedes that I thought was funny and cute:





When we arrived in Monreale, we parked like a true Italian - folks seem to park any which way!



We then walked up the hill and through the arch to the Cathedral which was being visited by many school groups:







The Cathedral is an example of Norman architecture and considered one of the most important sites of Italy - it is absolutely gilded with Byzantine-style mosaics:











We entered the baroque chapel:





The tombs of William I and the II, kings of Sicily, are here as well:



There was a small museum:



And a view of the cloisters:



After retrieving the car, we headed to Mondello, a seaside district and where Justin’s friend’s cousin’s friend was expecting us. He has several restaurants and we ate at D2 Daniels after finding free parking. A view of the water from the restaurant:



And our lunch which included a Sicilian pizza, salad with salmon tartare, linguini with sea urchin, and spaghetti with seafood:



After lunch, we filled the rental car tank and drove into Palermo where we checked into Palazzo Planeta where I had booked a two bedroom apartment. We dropped off the luggage and returned the rental car about ten minutes away. The first and only order of business was to do some laundry and figure out the washing machine. Thank goodness for YouTube and the help of friends who fretted with a similar machine before. The big discovery though is realizing it only washes and doesn’t dry as southern Europe just hangs their wash. A photo of the knob that is not very intuitive:



Indeed, our first night in the capital of Sicily is low key, but we enjoyed taking a break from the car and taking it easy before our day in Palermo!