San Paolo Palace Palermo

Palermo and the Sicily area

I absolutley loved Sicily. Palermo is a rough looking city where cars and mopeds try and hit you and nearby is beautiful beaches and towns. However, someone just stole my legendary Bubba Gump Shrimp hat on the bus so I am very very upset and angry!

Boat from Naples to Palermo

To start I got the overnight boat from Naples to Palermo. It was a ******* to find. There were no real signs or anything to find the boat and for some reason ...

After our horrendous train ride and not to mention nearly floating away in Sorrento we have made it to sunny Palermo.

When you arrive Palermo it is a contrasting mix of decay and splendor. You see this from the moment you leave the station. You have dirty smelly alley ways and grand old palaces, with there scars still evident from the bombings in WWII. Palermo is also home to the largest Opera house in Italy and third largest in Europe.

The ...

... seem like a Sunday afternoon cruise with grandpa driving. Sicilian drivers are nuts! They pay no attention to lane markings, for example, the only limit to the number of vehicles on a street is their physical size. And they drive very small cars. If you don't like the way the guy next to you is driving, you can reach over and slap him. Around all the cars and trucks are a constant swarm of scooters and ...

... from which they came. We lugged our bags past the PRIVATO sign, up two flights of stairs before finding a door with a small sign that said simply HOTEL, not which hotel, just HOTEL. We gambled and won.

The place was like something out of a World War I film. Indeed the guidebook brags that Mussolini once stayed there. It's easy to see that it was grand once upon a time but that was a very long time ago. Super high vaulted ceilings but with ...

We puttered around Palermo today - no tour or big destinations. Not
as hot as Tunisia yesterday, but still tiring. I think we are just a
little worn down. I think it must be an Italian law that every city
has spectacular cathedral built in the 1300's. It is too easy to get
Palermo, Sicily, Italy cpandjy

... failed, there goes our camera for the rest of the trip, but as you can see it worked great. We also invested in these $14 round floaties from Target that are key when you are like me. I mean I want to be in the water, but I don't want to swim...drowning isn't an option.

I tried putting on my Zune with the loud external speaker, but the Italo pumped up his boats stereo and drowned out my music with his Jazz. I took that as a ...

... wird es siche rnoch eine Weile dauern.

Als wir in Palermo das Schiff verlassen, ist das erste was auffällt mal wieder der Verkehr. Und wieder wundere ich mich, wie das funktioniert. Aber nach Genua und Neapel habe ich auch schon ein bisschen Übung und nicht mehr ganz so viel Angst, wenn ich mich todesmutig daran mache, eine Straße zu überqueren.

Da wir aber auch hier wieder nur einige Stunden Zeit haben, bis wir wieder auf dem Schiff sein müssen, können ...

... The hotel was the Grand des Palmes Hotel. I had suspected that this was the same hotel with a somewhat infamous history. In the 1950s, the heads of the 5 mafia families met in Palermo for a meeting, and yes, this is where they met. I have seen photos of the meeting in documentaries on the History channel, and this is where we were. We arrived in Palermo just after noon, and arranged for a personal driver to take us ...

... Evardo was on the floor the entire night showing us his moves. (See pictures). The ruins were missed, but the Tango experience was a great substitute!! SELINUTE to CONTESSA ENTELLINA The weather had improved so we got out of Dodge early on Sunday morning, hoping that the weather would hold up for the entire trip. The scenery was very different as we headed inland into Southeastern Sicily. Sea scenes gave way to rolling hills which were fully planted at this time ...

... dead people. Yuck, but interesting thinking that a bunch of people, indeed whole families paid for their space in the walls. There were people all over, some even propped up against walls, some behind glass like the little kids. One of them had been embalmed by a doctor who did such a great job, she looked simply like she was taking a nap. Unfortunately he died and took his embalming secrets with him so she is the only one. While I was walking around there was a woman I ...