Tonic 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.

... were taken by the spectacular views of buildings littering the sides of the steep slopes above, and each twist & 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.


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 ...

... we witnessed a funeral procession, where the mourners all walk behind the hearse, rather than drive cars as in the norm back in Australia. A sobering moment, after which we decided to head back into Palermo for lunch & to find the local archeological museum.....alas it was closed for renovations!


Another bus got us up the side of nearby Mont Pellegrino (600m) where there is a castle on one side up high...unfortunately not open to the public. Mont ...

... loose underfoot, with numerous places to slip or tiwst one's ankle, especially given the large number of elderly tourists we saw making the trip.

Next, we were off to the town of Trapani, right on the coast, with part of the older section jutting out in a spit into the two adjoining seas. Drove past & thru vast expanses of salt pans where salt production has been carried on commercially for centuries (surprised to find out from Salvo that the entire process ...

... 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!

Tonight, three Californian sisters, one Brazilian guy, and I went on the search for pasta con sarde, a Sicilian treat. After stopping in half a dozen restaurants, the "tre sorelle" restaurant (three sisters, ironically) decided they can make us the dish.

If you have doubts whether the mafia is still working... I don't.
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 ...

... little huts, parrots flying between the trees and even some tree we have never seem before call Bombacaceae. The bombacaceae tree had pickers all over it and grow very tall, it was very interesting to see something so different, just watch out you might lose some blood on them. After our day around Palermo, we headed back to then house for dinner. We wanted to thank them for having us by preparing dinner for them. Bart cooked a ...

... It was a great place with lots of archelogical pieces and facts. Lots of the pieces from Seluinute which we will see tomorrow. A wonderful lunch at the same place we had dinner. We order three or four dishes and then shared them. Great idea as it would have been difficult for us to eat a whole meal on our own...it is a lot of food! Our Italian is getting better or maybe we are just realizing how much we can understand between 10 years of Spanish, 3 years of ...