Palermo is a noisy city. It seems to be in constant construction and, when working in stone or concrete buildings and in small stone-paved streets, it means that one hears more jackhammers than anything else starting around 7:00.
Our memories of Palermo are becoming less hazy. We can’t remember specifics, but we do remember clearly that in the south of Italy and, especially in Sicily, crossing the street is an act of faith. In theory, pedestrians have priority at zebra crossings. In practice, even an experienced Italian will wait for traffic to thin slightly. Unlike in New Brunswick, where placing the tip of your small toe in the street will cause all traffic to screech to a stop, in Italy, we’re closer to Asian traffic rules (or apparent absence of them). Drivers will try to go around you and, if there’s no way physics will remotely allow them to go around and claim they didn’t see you, then, only then, will drivers slow down and, in rare cases, stop.
You can imagine that Karine, who has been on the receiving end of a car crash, does not like seeing cars approaching her at speed. She had to muster all of her faith that Italian drivers would stop for her. Her trick was to hold my hand, look ahead and not stop.
If you’re visiting the city without a partner, the trick is to:
- Wait for a small clearing ahead
- Make eye contact with each oncoming driver as you step in front of their car trajectory,
- Keep going at a steady pace.
Making eye contact ensures you are seen. A lot is going on in the streets of Palermo. Cars are attempting to squeeze into nonexistent lanes, scooters and motorcycles are trying to pass between vehicles, and sometimes coming from the sidewalks.
The heart of Palermo has sidewalks and some pedestrian-only zones. You’ll still see the occasional car, bus, and scooter in the pedestrian zone, but we found that street signs and rules seem more like suggestions than hard lines one should not cross. However, as you exit the heart of the city, the sidewalks get smaller and less frequent. When present, they are occupied by vendors, piles of garbage, parked motorcycles and cars (why not), and other items unrelated to pedestrians. This, most of the time, forces you to walk in the street. Motorists are primarily aware of this and drive relatively slowly, but might be surprised by your exit from a blind turn. It makes walking outside the city center a bit of an adventure.
One Sicilian specialty is arancini. They are large, fried balls of rice with various fillings (e.g., cheese, ragù, seafood). The ingredient is not the problem; rather, it is the size. The ratio of mush to fried envelope isn’t high enough to keep the structure of the ball of rice once you’ve cut into it. You’re eating a lot more flavoured rice mush than anything else. We’ve had the “chance” to try arancini bomba; these things are so big that my fist is smaller than they are. I don’t want to bore you with the math, but our mush-to-fried envelope ends up being off the chart. They might be able to incorporate four distinct flavours into the product, but it remains a disaster. Keep to the seafood and couscous when visiting the region.
So, other than having huge arancini, we did visit a palazzo with actual furniture in it (Palazzo Morti) and went to see dead people at (Catacombe de Cappuccini). Both are well worth the detour.
As with most places in southern Italy, the catacombs were closed between 13:00 and 15:00, so we visited the palazzo first. What a find. Usually, when you go around a palazzo in Italy, you find very empty rooms and a little furniture spread around. In this palace, the furniture was the focal point. Every room had a theme, and the little guide they provide helps you understand what it is and why. I don’t know why anybody would need three living rooms, four studies, two dining rooms, four boudoirs, three libraries, a theatre room and a single bedroom, but that’s pretty much what they had (I’m fuzzy on the exact numbers of each type, but there’s just the one bedroom). I guess the kids were not encouraged to stay home for very long. Come on, kid, get your own palazzo.
After this entertaining visit, we stopped for coffee at Vera Coffee. The place is as hipster coffee as you can have in Italy, from what I can tell. It has a nice, small menu and good snack options. That’s also where we discovered shakeratos. It’s espresso poured into a shaker with ice until it is frothy. It’s excellent and pretty much what we’re having every chance we get.
Following two servings of our discovery drink, we made the thirty-minute trek to the catacombs. Essentially, the Cappuccin monks decided it was a good idea to mummify their dead and then hang them on the walls. It’s a large room with the remains of people from the years 1500 to 1920 on the wall. At some point, it was considered an honour to be put there. Not sure where I stand on the display, but it was fascinating to see the different levels of preservation. It would seem that a couple of monks figured out how to do it well but forgot to tell the others.
Overall, we walked around 15km under a blazing sun at 32°C. When the time came to decide where to have dinner, we went with the easy solution. Stopped at the grocery, got some fruits, salty crackers, some cookies and called it a meal. We watched TV and went to bed early.