Palermo City Break

Recommended days	4
Budget	£
Difficulty	Easy

A Palermo city break has been on my list of places to visit for ages. Now I admit, it’s a very long list so it doesn’t necessarily mean much but the fusion of Byzantine and Norman cultures that flowered on the island for a hundred years has created an amazing architectural legacy.

We finally got the chance this year when Easyjet cancelled our planned flights to Naples so we had to find somewhere else to go!

Why Palermo

For those that aren’t aware of it, Palermo has an incredibly rich history. Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Ostrogoths (or maybe Vandals) and Byzantines all took turns to rule the city until it was conquered by the Arabs in the 9th century. It was then that the visible history of Palermo begins as there doesn’t seem to be much left of anything earlier.

The Normans conquered the city at about the same time as they conquered England and there followed a glorious fusion of Byzantine, Norman and Arabic culture that lasted maybe 150 years and resulted in some of the most important books and buildings of the medieval world. And that potted history lesson shows what I’d come to see.

Our Palermo city break

We set our alarms for the masochistic time of 4AM to get our shuttle bus to the airport. It was chilly and surprisingly quiet at that time and we sailed through security and sat and had a bleary eyed Starbucks before heading to the gate.

Take off was lovely as there was lots of low cloud and as soon as we were airborne we were above it, looking down on a sea of white, punctuated by occasional hills and with a sunrise rolling across the landscape. Shame I didn’t have a window seat for pics!

I spent the flight catching up on iPlayer watching including a couple of episodes of Innuendo Bingo for light relief! Food choice is incredibly limited if you don’t want fat or stodge (actually I did want it, I just wasn’t allowed it!) so I stuck to porridge and another coffee.

We landed in Palermo to a rather dull but warm day. The airport was very quiet and dated but we had no luggage and the train was well signposted (once it was explained about getting the tickets stamped after you’d bought them) so we sat and waited for the train.

We travelled through various graffiti sprayed stations and almost missed our stop until someone pointed it out to us. Stupidly I’d been assuming that the sign showing ‘next station’ would actually be up to date! We grabbed our stuff and exited the train and after a few tentative wrong turns Google sorted itself out and we headed past the Norman Palace, through a park and to our hotel.

First impressions were of a very grand and impressive city that is sadly in need of investment and a good clean up. Don’t believe people that tell you it’s all part of the ‘charm’. Unless you’re into graffiti, litter and derelict buildings, it’s not.

Our Accomodation

I vicini della cattedrale was an amazing bargain – I found it on hotels.com and it was £39 a night including breakfast. We had a huge room, views over the cathedral and gardens, good wifi, lovely bathroom and a great location. All it lacked was a kettle but I guess I’m just too bloody English!

Chiese del SS Salvatore

We left our luggage and headed out to have a quick look around as we couldn’t check in until 2. There was a church just round the corner – Chiese del SS Salvatore – that looked interesting. We paid our €2.50 and walked in to a 3D baroque extravaganza. It was nicer than the normal catholic baroque as the colours were a lot more muted, mostly whites and greys, so the designs really stood out.

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We also went round the corner for the cupola tour but I did that solo as Deb hates spiral staircases. I was fine climbing the stairs until I reached the spiral part – a wrought iron floating staircase that you could see right through just before it collapsed and you plumetted to your death.

It was a real effort of will to climb but I am so glad I did as you could see the roof of the dome and all the timber supports for the tower as well as views over the city. Well worth an extra €2.50.

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By now we were rather hungry so we had a search on Trip Advisor but all the recommended places were full, which I guess is kinda the point. Obviously it is not easy finding anywhere Deb deigns to eat anyway but eventually we settled on Bar Ventimiglia, sat down and ordered our food in our total lack of Italian and the waiter’s broken English.

I then checked Trip Advisor and found the last 3 reviews for the place had all been 1 star! Our food did arrive quickly and the portions were good, taste and presentation were fine and it seemed decent value for money so maybe we were lucky or the previous people unlucky. Suitably refreshed we headed back to the hotel to actually get to our room.

Palermo Cathedral

We sorted our stuff and chilled for a bit while setting important stuff up like laptops and wifi. It was then almost 4 so we headed to the Cathedral as it was only a couple of minutes away. We paid €10 each for the tickets to include the crypts and the roof tour (which has a timed slot).

The crypts had various sarcophagi in them and also assorted church treasures, standard sort of thing. There was a separate room with the crown of King Roger (I think) in it which was impressive for thousand year old regalia. The underground rooms were just empty stone vaults.

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The interior of the cathedral was totally different to the exterior, very baroque and flowery although pretty in a monochromatic way. The exterior, especially seen from the roof was a different matter. Deb did really well with the spiral staircase and managed it all the way to the top in one go.

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The views from the top were nice, the city is flat and surrounded by steep green hills and the only tall buildings seemed to be churches. There is very little green space and it just seems to be a jumble of bodged and run down buildings. The cathedral was just gorgeous though.

A very simple and elegant design and floorplan but with intricate embellishments that enhance the overall aesthetic. I’m waffling, look at the pictures! We watched sunset from the cathedral roof and then headed back to the hotel for me to write my notes up and Deb to find somewhere suitable for dinner.

By using a translation app, she bought herself some cheese, salami and a bottle of wine to drink while I was sorting photos so we ended up going out for frozen yoghurt, waffles and biscuits (me) and a black coffee (Deb). The guy in the shop (Yogurtlandia) was excellent though, very helpful and other than getting brain freeze and numb hands, probably caused by eating frozen yoghurt outside in November, it was a great dinner!

I actually managed over 7 hours sleep and woke up at a sensible time which was excellent. We had a leisurely hour and then as the weather was so gorgeous we did a circuit of the cathedral first to take advantage of the blue skies and no crowds.

We then headed to breakfast at the nearby Bar Marocco. The girl serving there spoke excellent English but it wasn’t really a breakfast place in the traditional sense. Deb had a couple of coffees and I had a cannolo – a kind of sweet cheese filling in a sweet wrap and something else that was like a sugar doughnut with more sweet cheese in it. I’ve probably hit my sugar target before 9AM!

Porta Nuova

We walked a little way up the road to Porta Nuova, built to celebrate the capture of Tunis from the Moors in the sixteenth century. That was a nice little diversion before we headed to our first proper stop, the Norman Palace of Palermo.

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Palermo Norman Palace

Once the bunch of screeching Italian women in front of the ticket office had dispersed I bought our tickets (€15 each) for the Cappella Palatina, Castrum Superius Royal Apartments and the Royal Gardens (an extra €4 that we didn’t find out until later and had to go out and buy them as you can’t get them at the garden entrance …..)

The first section was a long history of the city with lots of information in English and plenty of artifacts. It was fascinating to read their view of the Moslem occupation of the island. I’d always read that the Moslems ushered in a period of tolerance and coexistence but the story here was that was a myth spread in the 18th century by people unhappy with the rule of the current (Spanish?) rulers.

Moslem rule actually had all Christians paying a special tax and the island being a very run down agricultural base. There was lots on the achievements of the Norman kings and it was actually an excellent museum in its own right.

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The next stop on the tour was the Royal Apartments. These were, for me, the least interesting part as I’m not really into 18th century baroque although the trompe l’oeil was excellent and the Pompeii and Chinese rooms had interesting decor.

We spent a while there as the main attraction, the Royal Chapel, didn’t open until 11. We were there for that time and went straight in. The mosaics here for fantastic, certainly exceeding those we’d seen in Byzantium itself and even Ravenna.

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Wow! The room was a riot of gold and mosaics, telling the stories of Peter and Paul but in the iconic Byzantine style and with an arabic ceiling. Quite the fusion! A picture paints a thousand words so it’s better to look at the photos really! When we came out of the chapel there was a huge queue as only a small group are allowed in at any one time so the lesson is, get there early!

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We walked to the gardens next but had to go back outside to buy a separate ticket then come back in which was a bit of a faff. The gardens were nothing special but were mostly quiet and peaceful to walk around and we sat down for a coffee whilst listening to chamber music, very nice.

I had researched plenty of options but no real plan for today and the two options we looked at – Zisi castle and the catacombs – both closed at 1 so we decided to walk down the main Via Vittoria Emanuele towards the port and see what took our fancy.

We walked down to the Quattro Canti, the meeting of four streets and had a wander as we saw an interesting church. It was a very arab building with three domes on the roof and arabic style windows and is actually the Church of San Cataldo, built by the Normans but now owned by the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.

It was closed to tourists as it was Sunday but was a nice setting, marred only by the constant bloody professional beggars demanding money for dead babies or whatever and making a damned sight more money than the church!

Santa Caterina d’Alessandria

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As we came down the steps from the church I saw a sign for a monastery bakery which I remembered reading about on Trip Advisor. We obviously headed straight there and decided to do the rooftop tour of the Monastery of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria, a bargain at €8 each.

We climbed the steps and made our way through several faded and run down corridors before climbing a final set of stairs the led past the roof of the dome and outside. We were overlooking the fountain of Pretoria and took a few pics there while deep breathing to avoid hurling a tour group that kept stopping in them middle of the route and yakking to their watery doom below.

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We descended the stairs and went through more dilapidated rooms (maybe they should have mugged those beggars!) before reaching the sanctuary of the bakery. I have pretty pathetic willpower when it comes to cakes so I succumbed to another cannolo although I didn’t really want it, washed down by the smallest coffee ever.

I did think €1 was cheap for a coffee and now I can see why! The bakery part was packed so as soon as I’d finished stuffing my face we left and headed outside.

Pretoria Fountain

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We walked across to the Pretoria Fountain which was very pretty although the square itself was run down with derelict buildings and graffiti. We slowly made our way back to the hotel, mostly because I was so obese I could only waddle. It was then time to write some notes and sort through the 400 photos from the day before going out again later.

Going out involved walking next door for dinner. Either they think all Brits are pigs or they thought we were going to share dinner. I ordered a pizza and it arrived as a huge 12 slice cheese and ham monstrosity that caused me actual pain to finish. And I guess proved that all Brits are pigs.

To make things worse I’d promised the yoghurt guy we’d go there for dessert so I had to waddle a few hundred metres and had crepes and yoghurt with shortbread biscuits on the side. When we eventually got back to the hotel I started browsing maternity wear to find some clothes that would fit me!

After my ridiculous gluttony I had a very restless nights sleep and woke at 7, still feeling bloated. We headed down for breakfast around 9 and I opted for a more healthy spread of pizza and chocolate croissant.

We then wandered towards the bus stop, found out that it was actually about 200m away from where it was marked and just before the bus arrived we remembered you needed to buy tickets from the tobacconist! Luckily there was one nearby so we spent our €2.80 and got tickets in time to pack ourselves onto the bus.

Definitely standing room only! It took quite a while to reach Monreale and we could have probably walked there in the same time but it was an experience. This was certainly one of the highlights of our Palermo city break.

Monreale Cathedral

We walked up the hill towards the cathedral and saw a small alley with the rear of the cathedral at the end so we headed there to look at that aspect before rejoining the main square and buying our tickets. €12 each covered the cathedral, terraces, museum and cloisters – rather a bargain.

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The cathedral was like the Pallatine Chapel but bigger. And sadly a lot darker. I don’t know if it was because the day was overcast but the place was spectacular but also very dull, the colours didn’t stand out as much as they could have. We walked around, being continually impressed by the skill and vision of the craftsmen involved in building the spectacular place.

We didn’t spend too long in the diocesan museum as it was mostly vestments and religious artefacts and we’d seen enough of that sort of gaudy excess before. Strange how I consider a cloak with gold thread as ‘gaudy excess’ but a building whose walls and roof are covered in gold is ‘spectacular’!

I guess one is made to glorify a man whilst the other is built to glorify a god. From the museum though you could access the roof walk which gave views over the cloisters and then after climbing some more stairs, over the Bay of Palermo and the city itself. The clouds did look very foreboding from up here!

Monreale Cloisters

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We returned to the cathedral and asked how we got to the cloisters, which turned out to be via a building in the square behind the cathedral. We decided to head there before the rain actually hit so went straight inside and started the circuit of the cloisters.

They were beautiful, a mix of arabic and christian designs with gorgeous elegance and simplicity. Some of the detailing on the columns was just stunning and the little fountain in one corner was lovely. They were also fairly empty of visitors. We had a peaceful 15 mins or so doing a circuit before we headed outside and into the drizzle.

There weren’t many places open but we opted for Gelateria Ricevitoria restaurant as their tables were protected from the rain. My first choice wasn’t available so I opted for lasagna – looked like it had been bought from Iceland and heated up, nothing like the picture at all! Still, it was warm and Deb’s meat cuts with cheese looked nice although the bread was dry. I decided not to bother with dessert.

The rain was now quite heavy with rolling thunder and lightning flashes. We made our way down the hill towards the bus stop, not hurrying as we had an hours wait. We joined another group and it slowly expanded with all of us sheltering under cover, wishing we’d packed warmer clothes.

The bus eventually arrived and was packed before it left Monreale and we made our slow way through the city traffic before we got off in Independence Square and walked back to the hotel.

I just dumped my wet clothes, got in bed to thaw out and watched stuff on the iPad for an hour before starting the long process of note writing and sorting the photos. Just over 2 hours later that task was done so we sat down to a dinner consisting mostly of tuna, the healthiest meal all holiday! Obviously I then went out for pancakes which were bloody delicious!

Palermo Food Tour

According to my Fitbit I had an excellent sleep of over 7 hours so I’ve no idea why I woke up thinking it was 3AM when it was actually gone 7. We left the hotel around 8.30 and had a light breakfast of a cream filled doughnut and coffee before walking down to meet our Food Tour of Palermo, which I’d booked for Deb as part of our Palermo city break.

There were only 5 of us plus the guide, Dominico, so it was a nice sized group. We had about 3 and a half hours and wandered through some areas we hadn’t been before and of course, the food market in Barocca. We went inside the city hall so we could look over one of the original Norman churches in the square below and also see the workings (!) of Italian local government. Apparently they have 20,000 civil servants on Sicily but I have no idea what they do as the place is obviously massively lacking investment.

Church of St Mary dell Ammiraglio

We then went inside the Church of St Mary dell Ammiraglio which still uses Greek Orthodox rites and is a mix of baroque and Byzantine interior design. It predates the Norman Palace chapel by a few years and has yet more of the glorious golden mosaics.

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From there we had a quick diversion into the city archives to see how they store all of the original documents before walking through the market area and looking at and trying various foods. There were strangely no takers for the spleen sandwich but I had an arancini – a sort of deep fried rice ball with cheese and ham.

We continued looking at various food stalls and then had a quick diversion to the Jesuit church of Jesus which was a real riot of baroque and ended up in Ruvolo Cafe where I indulged in something that was basically a brioche bun with two scoops of ice cream – dark chocolate and pistachio in my case. The guide was excellent and gave us some nice insights into the life and history of the island.

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We left the group there and headed to the No Mafia Exhibition which gave a real insight into the poverty on the island during the 1930’s and some graphic photos of the ongoing war between the authorities and the mafia (although sometimes they seemed to be on the same side against the common people). I was a bit confused as to the stance of the organisation as not every panel was in English but it was certainly food for thought and I’ll do some more research when we get home.

A cafe we had been trying to get to for ages – Kassaro – actually had spaces so we went there for lunch. The menu looked great but I was so full of junk food I couldn’t eat anything and just had coffee and water. Deb had a great salad and some aubergine dish and the portions and value were excellent. Ah well, hindsight’s a great thing!

We continued back to the hotel to collect our luggage and then actually remembered the route back to the train station. The train was on time and clean and we were soon at the airport. We had a couple of hours to spare but that gave me a chance to type up these notes and Deb caught up on all her assorted phone activities.

We then arrived back in the UK to the usual fiasco. We couldn’t just exit the plane, we had to wait for a bus and then it took just over 20 minutes to fill both buses rather than sending one off full so everyone didn’t arrive at passport control at the same time.

That delay meant we missed our shuttle bus to the hotel to collect the car so we had a 45 minute wait in the cold and then after getting the car 2 of the motorways had closed sections so it took an extra hour to get home. It must be hilarious for any Italians arriving from Palermo that we are supposed to be an efficient, modern country yet our infrastructure is worse than theirs despite bombing, Mafia and lack of investment!

No more trips this year but our Palermo city break was a good one to end on. Absolutely amazing Normano Arab architecture, friendly people, delicious (if unhealthy) food, lots of history and bargain prices.

2019