Cristal Palace Palermo

apres un peu plus de 3 heures a sillionner la sicile, nous somme arriver a palerme. une ville qui ressemble plus a naples qu'a syracuse.. C'est dimannche, tout est fermer, nous avons eu du mal a trouver de quoi se faire a souper, mais nous somme finalement tomber sur une petite boucherie ou nous ...

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.
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.

... the town from the old porto (fortified entrance gate) at the upper part of the town, and proceeded to walk down and along the pedestrian streets towards the corresponding porto at the lower limit of Taormina.................what a place!!??


Firstly, we walked up a side street following the signs, to all of a sudden be at the ancient, original entrance gates to the Greek-Roman theatre!! Although different sections have been reconstructed over the ages, parts of the ...

... place with solid tmber pews arranged inside a rock cave, all covered by a facade which looks from the outside like a white church entrance.

There were some striking views over the city & coastline from the very windy access road to the top.

As we arrived back in the city centre, ready for the brief walk to our hotel, a thunderstorm got the better of us and we were wet by the time we arrived at the lobby! Nothing for it but some rumbos and another early night!

... 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.

Our return trip to Palermo featured 120-140kph speeds on the motorway, even in a Mercedes van!

... tiles in the world....truly something to see, and the views across Palermo & the nearby coastline were very nice as well.



A morning well spent, and well worth the money, as we saw & learnt so much more than tourists travelling by themselves would expect to. We walked to local trattoria for a late lunch, then stocked up on supplies at the nearby supermercato, before snacks & rums for tea and an early night!

... but I was pretty horrified. I knew what it was too, what was I thinking?! We went down into the cellar of a monastery and then walked through hallway after hallway filled with dead people hanging from the walls or laying on supports. All dressed in what was their finest attire, I imagine, but long since disintegrated into dusty threads. Some had little signs on them dating their deaths back to the late 1800s ...

More trains... The trip from Messina to Palermo took about 3 hours and was pretty uneventful. The coastal scenery was reasonably nice, but to be honest, not worth the 6 hour round trip. We got to Palermo and booked a first class sleeper train back to Rome. It's pretty amazing, the train runs from Palermo to Messina, they split the train up into three segments, load it onto a ferry, travel across to the mainland, then connect it ...

... so promptly hung up on me! Good thing her niece, Vittoria who spoke great English and is a College student of literature and history, came with me into the place as the desk reception did not speak English - it was the night shift (11:30 p.m.) Also apparently the train station here gets very scary at night so it was good that I could go with t hem in their car but what a feeling it is to be in ...