Astoria Palace (Standard) Palermo

WE depart Sicily with wonderful memories of sunny skies, blue Mediterranean seas, green hillsides covered with grape vines and olive trees, old cities, castles and greek temples, and of course good food. <br>We will see more sights in Rome, and then travel down the coast to Sorrento and Amalfi. I will post more about the things we are doing and seeing as we continue our trip.

... only one. Had no idea what was going on the whole time as all the announcements were in Italian but I got there in the end. I think I stuck out on the boat as being the only foreigner because I was the only one on the entire boat wearing shorts. Even though the temperature is in the mid 20's no one wears shorts. They all wear jackets and pants because to them it is cold and I think shorts are not stylish<br><br>.Palermo<br><br>I originally had planned to only stay a couple of ...

... were taken by the spectacular views of buildings littering the sides of the steep slopes above, and each twist &amp; turn of the road revealed even more pretty views, either below or continuing above......all the sharp turns and accompanying rocky confines of the road were covered by various forms of greenery, making for a truly lovely spot.<br><br><br>Here, as at Etna, we were left to our own devices by Marco, who informed us we had 2.5 hrs to discover Taormina on foot....we ...

... only 20 minutes out of the city centre, Mondello appeared to us to be a sleepy, quiet, pretty place, certainly around mid-morning on a Monday!<br><br><br>Mondello is also a fishing village, and there was no shortage of boats moored en masse opposite the main square. Small stalls were selling freshly caught fish, and huge gulls hovered, swooped &amp; ran in groups along this portion of the shore to grab any scraps or morsels they could.<br><br>While strolling along the ...

... time-trial car race was taking place on the winding roads on one side of the mountain, meaning police had closed that route to the top. The noise of the straining engines could be heard echoing around the lower reaches of the place, and was quite interesting to watch the speeds of the cars as they wound their way past, below our panoramic viewing area up high.<br><br>Our return trip to Palermo featured 120-140kph speeds on the motorway, even in a Mercedes van!<br><br><br>

arrived around 8pm at airport &amp; sped (120kph) to hotel by recent model Mercedes! checked in &amp; walked down street to Trattoria for late tea of authentic pizza (delicious!)<br><br><br><br>Next Morning, we were picked up by our personal giude for the morning, Valentina. Well educated, spoke excellent English plus great knowledge of history &amp; architectural styles made for a fascinating morning around the old city.<br><br><br><br>Valentina drove ...

... and skeletons of some 8000 Palermitans who died between the 17th and 19th century. a weird experience but definitely a must see. It is never a nice experience seeing eyeless sockets staring directly at you. <br><br>That night with the hostel owner and 15 others we all headed out for dinner in true Italy style. We ate for 4 hours before hitting the bars and stumbling home at 2.30 in the morning. It was all you can eat and DRINK for &#8364;15. A good night.

If you have doubts whether the mafia is still working... I don't.<br>Palermo is a charming mediterranean city, his highlights are so great, his Cathedral is amazing, but try not to get lost in the streets... we saw a peculiar street market and we decided to ...

... store that sold jeans. I was very relieved to find a pair because the holes I had worn in my old ones were very inappropriate. We also found a little book store where I purchased Costra Nostra: The history of the Sicilian Mafia. We spent the rest of the day reading until we boarded our 7pm train to Bari. The over night train was pretty crumby. The "beds" were really the chairs with a sleeping bag like sheet draped over them. I got very little sleep, especially since we had ...

On July 27th we disembarked in Sicily and went to our hotel for breakfast. Later we went on a tour of the city and visited Palatine Cathedral and Monreale. In the afternoon we visited the catacombes which had hundreds of mumified skeletons. From there we drove to the top of Mount Pellegrino to overlook Palermo. It was an impressive view. Our ...