First day in Sicily - Palermo

Travel to Italy and Arriving in Sicily

Our flight from LA to Rome left on Wednesday, April 24th round 4 pm and we arrived in Rome around Noon. After about 5 hours in the Rome airport we left for Palermo, Sicily and arrived at our hotel around 7:30 pm. It had been a long day of travel, but we were thankful that we had no major delays or travel hiccups. The fact that we had wait 5 hours for our connecting flight and there was nowhere to lay down or rest in the Rome airport meant that we had no choice but to 'push through' and get adjusted to the new time.

The 1 hour flight from Rome to Palermo was painless. As we looked down on Palermo from above we noticed a pretty significant haze hanging over the Island. We later learned that this haze was residual sand in the air from a recent Sirocco wind event that had ended a day or two prior to our arrival.

Our hotel was called the 'Eurostar Central Palace' and it was pretty basic, but fine for just one night. The location was excellent. We had a nice dinner in the Piazza Bologni at a restaurant called I Cucci, which was less than two blocks from the hotel. There were a couple of street musicians entertaining us for most of dinner.

Our First Full Day and Tour of Palermo

After a fitful night of sleep due to jet lag, we met our tour guide, Maggie outside of our hotel at 9 am. The first landmark on our list was the Monreale Cathedral, which is located up on a hill overlooking the city of Palermo. It's a beautiful cathedral and was completed in the 12th century AD. The most impressive visual aspect of the huge cathedral is the extensive use of Byzantine Mosaic art. We learned that this art form was popular during the time when the cathedral was built and was used all over Europe.

Our tour guide, Maggie, taught us a lot about the history of Sicily. Since the island has been conquered and ruled by so many different peoples throughout history, it is today a true 'melting pot' of cultures and cuisines. Sicily was originally conquered by the Phoenicians in 600 BC, but there were countless other groups that followed the Phoenicians, including the Normans in 1000 AD. We learned that the Sicilians are most proud of their Norman heritage because the time when they ruled was considered to be somewhat of a Golden Age.

After the Monreale Cathedral, we headed back down into central Palermo. Palermo is a city of one million people -- that surprised us. Maggie called it 'a city of contrasts.' There is the contrast between old and new, rich and poor, Muslim and Christian, Italian and Sicilian and on and on. Here is a picture looking back down on Palermo from Monreale and you can see the haze residue from the sirocco winds:

We had an incredible lunch in the Palermo marketplace. We sampled some of the famous Palermo street food, which included: Arancini, Caponatta, Panella and Cazzilli. The Arancini was the best. It was basically a ball of rice surrounded by bread crumbs and with meat in the middle. It was fantastic. The Caponatta was great too -- eggplant with olive oil and seasonings. The Panella is like a corn meal or bread made from Chick Peas -- very good. And finally we had some Cazzilli, which is basically a potato croquette.

After lunch we headed back to the center of town and got our Uber ride to Cefalu, which is about an hour west of Palermo. More on Cefalu tomorrow. Still a bit jet lagged and ready to call it a day!