Palermo: Sat Sept 10 – Wed Sept 14
Accommodation link.
Sunday 11th September.
The weather on our trip has, with the exception of one Lecce morning, been nothing but consistent: sunshine, clear blue skies and very hot. Our first morning in Palermo was no different.
Our apartment was located in Palermo old town and just steps from the harbour / marina so that’s where we headed for our morning walk. There was a wide promenade extending around the waterfront and plenty of others out exercising this morning as well, despite the relatively early hour of 8 am on a Sunday. My efforts to order a post-walk skim iced latte failed today, despite the help of Google translate. Our waiter nodded confidently that he understood my order but I ended up with a ‘cafe sucre’ which was like a very sweet double espresso 🙁 I have decided I need to ask for ice cubes next time which translates as ‘Ghiaccio’.
Todays main activity was a 2 hour walking tour, booked for 11 am, and so we set off a bit early to further explore the local area. Palermo was noticeably different from all the other areas we’d been so far in that there was greater morning activity in the streets; the roads were bustling with people, locals and tourists despite being just before 10.30 am.
Our guide for the tour was a school teacher, named Paolo, but he wasn’t due to start back at school for another week. We met him outside Chiesa Sant’Ignazio all’Olivella, a baroque church dating back to 1598 that was built on the site of a 12th century palace. Paolo then took our large group, of 40 or so, to our first stop at the Teatro Massimo, the largest Opera house in Italy and the third biggest in Europe.
Our group then stopped at the baroque square of Quattro Canti, an intersection of two streets with stone carvings, dating back to the early 1600s, built into each of the four corners. Each of the four carvings had three levels; with the bottom representing each of the four seasons, the next representing four different emperors and the highest representing four saints so as to reflect the dominance of Church over State. We also found out from Paolo that our street, Via Vittorio Emmanuel, was the oldest street in Palermo and dated back to the time of the Phoenicians 2,500-64 BC!
The next stop on the way was the Church of St Catald; a 12th century church built by Muslims labour during the Norman era and there was clear Islamic influence in the sculpture of the building.
The second last stop was to visit the Chiesa del Gesù di Casa Professa, located in the old Jewish quarter. At one time there were 20,000 Jews in the area but now there are just 19. Like in Lecce, the Jews were expelled from the region during 1492 as part of the Aragonese Christian cleaning, under King Ferdinand 11 and Queen Isabella, of Moors and Jews alike. Like in Lecce, it seems Jews have had little interest in returning. The Chiesa del Gesù di Casa Professa was constructed from 1591 and inaugurated in 1649. The two main points of note about the church being that it was used to house the sick during the Black Death 1347 and it contained the most impressive display of marble and stone work. You would think the columns and walls of the church were finely painted works of art but, no, they were intricately hand carved marble and stone!
Our last stop on the tour was at the impressive 11th century Palermo Cathedral. This was built on the site of an old mosque and, it too, displayed Islamic architectural features. We were too tired and hungry by this stage to go for the tour inside the cathedral so planned to return tomorrow. So, tired and hungry at the end of tour, we ambled back down the oldest street in Palermo and had a bit of lunch before heading home for some time to put up our feet and relax in the cool of our apartment.
We drifted back out again at around 6pm to find somewhere to have an aperitivo. We searched out a few different places but, in the end, we found ourselves back at ‘Cheers’ where we’d had our aperitivo the night before and the nice waitress remembered us and even Mark’s beer order! We’re almost locals! It was then just a few steps to back upstairs for a quiet night of dining in.
