We came into Palermo, not by boat like
the Phoenicians, Greeks, Arabs, Normans and Spaniards, but descending
through the sky in a metal ship, complete with coffee and early
morning cheese sandwiches, craning our necks to get our first views
of the port that had attracted so many before us.
“Palermo was lovely. The most beautifully situated town in the world – it dreams away its life in the Conca d’Oro, the exquisite valley that lies between two seas. The lemon groves and the orange gardens were entirely perfect.”Oscar Wilde
Planning this trip was a long process,
and the time between first imagining we might actually go and hitting
the purchase button for the first flight, even longer. Still, I had a feeling of incredulity as we entered the land of my ancestors,
my mother's family. Were we really here? I mean, who goes to Sicily?
Well, a lot of people, it turns out.
Tourism is actually a main industry of Palermo. But more visitors, it
seems to me, come from Europe and from within Italy. At least when we
answered to Sicilians and Usticans that we were from Texas, they
seemed very impressed, and often commented on how long the journey
was.
Airbnb is my friend, and especially in
Palermo, where the people who owned the apartment we would be staying
in for 3 days, offered a pick up service at the airport. I'm not sure
we would have found it, otherwise. And still we made a few passes through
the Palermo traffic, all the while conversing in broken Italian and
even more broken English, trying to approach the place through the
narrow streets and find a place to stop the car. We arrived at a tiny
piazzetta and said goodbye to our chauffeurs. The stone walls rose up
with no space between the street with traffic and the entry to
buildings. The owner met us and showed us up to the apartment. I have
to admit that I was dismayed by the small spiral staircase we had to
climb, but Paolo grabbed my suitcase and up we went.
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| Edward on the Scary Stairs |
Today was my birthday. Coming seven
hours earlier than it would in Texas, and tired as we were (I do not
sleep well on planes), I was ready to go out and explore.
The apartment had been advertised as in
the center, near the cathedral, but really, we had no idea where we
were. We just started walking and twisting through narrow stone
streets. Jet lag may have had a hand in our lack of orienting
ourselves during that first outing. My own current sleep schedule is
so erratic that I wonder if I actually get jet lag, but Edward said, you may not know, it just makes you less smart.
Palermo seemed close and narrow, that
first afternoon...and dirty. At some street corners were overflowing
bins, or just piles of garbage, some in bags, some not. Finally, I
looked at Edward and said, This is the dirtiest place I have ever
been to in Italy. I felt a little guilty that this was his
introduction to Italy, and wanted him to know that it had not been
like this in other places. Yet, the architecture was interesting, the
sense of age and history that you just don't get in America. And I always love hearing people in the streets speak Italian (even in places like Boston or
San Francisco).
A couple of blocks from the apartment,
there was a small fruit and vegetable stand set up at an
intersection, and I bought a paper cone of these fruits
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| Nespoplo |
from a young
man...teenager...whose English was pretty good, and who picked the pieces of
fruit for us, discarding the less perfect ones.
In a wider area of the streets, mostly
blocked from the traffic of cars, but not necessarily from scooters, we
found a street market. Palermo is famous for its street markets and
street food, and I had been planning on taking a tour, but it was
full the day we were able to take it. That's okay. The street food
feast of Palermo is open and available to all, all the time.
I found this little street stall with
arancini, panelle, and fried vegetables, fritti misti, and had a
somewhat convoluted conversation with the proprietor about the
composition of the food (no carne? sono vegetariana). These guys had
been battered and pre-fried, and then were put into a fryer again,
right there in the street, to finish. Artichoke stems, red peppers,
stalks of onion (Edward ate those), eggplant, zucchini, and panelle (fritters or patties of chickpeas,
just think hummus fries).
This snack of street food was our first
meal in Sicily. Perfetto.
all photos © 2018 Anita Barnard
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