Palermo, Day 3, Monday, September 19, 2022

Buffet breakfast on the hotel rooftop. I could get used to this daily cappuccino.

We hopped on our tour bus and headed to the Palazzo dei Normanni. We would come back to this later, so walked over to the Cattedrale (did the cathedral yesterday), went inside (again), and Kathie got answers to her questions about basilicas. She can blog about that if she’d like to, being the church aficionado of the two of us.

Back outside, Francesca took us across the street to a tiny café, where we sat at an outdoor table and had coffee. I had my first espresso – with much sugar, thank you very much! “Un po,” with the universal thumb and index finger gesture for “just a little one, please”. Otherwise, you get a double shot, which has enough caffeine and bitterness to launch a bull to Mars. Honest.

The rest of the day is a blur. I know that we walked to Piazza Bellini via Quattro Canti – been there done all that – but at what point we stopped for lunch, I couldn’t tell you. I think it was after Piazza Bellini that we hit the Vucciria Market for lunch. The tour folks thought we might like to “build our own” from the buffet table.

Kathie took one look at the buffet table's offerings and said, “Um, no.” We ordered from the menu.

Walking back toward the Palazzo, Francesca pointed out the building that had been Mussolini’s party headquarters on Sicily. She also pointed out, not far from Il Duce’s HQ, some buildings that the Allies had bombed. Palermo was apparently hit pretty badly.

I loved the Capella Palatina! These are my favorite photos from there.

That last photo is of a stylized palm tree motif we saw several times throughout the trip. According to Francesca, the palm tree was sacred to the Arabic folks who lived in Sicily long ago - a tree of life, as it provided water to those living in a desert.

Somehow, we still had time to bus over to Monreale, through rush hour traffic. Not a fun experience, and my lack of photos from the place indicates how much I cared about it. Just too tired. Here’s one from Kathie that’s pretty cool though.

Dinner was on our own this evening so Kathie and I trooped over for one last dinner at Spinnato. Our friendly waiter informed us that the kitchen was closed, but there were other items we could get to eat. He recommended the arancini (stuffed rice balls) and we also ordered one of so many desserts we had on this trip that I can’t remember what it was.

He came back to check on us afterward. Thinking I was being very Italian, I smiled and exclaimed, “Mucho gusto!” Obviously, I never learned Spanish or I would have known better than to tell him it was a pleasure to meet him. He was a good sport and chuckled – although I didn’t know why at the time. Oh well. For the rest of the trip, Kathie and I tittered, and sometimes outright guffawed, about that little faux pas. Our waiter is probably still chuckling about it too.

“Crazy Americans!”