Sicily is an enormous island and is so big I wasn’t sure whether I should even include it.  Back in April I visited Sicily for a very brief overnight stay in Messina on my way to the Aeolian Islands so I counted it then.  This time I was on my way to the Egadi Islands off the west coast of Sicily but I had a little more time to explore the fabulous city of Palermo with its colourful day and night street markets, enormous public buildings and the most impressive and enormous cathedral I have ever seen.  I also had a brief glimpse at the city of Trapani on the West coast and the lush green countryside between the two cities so I thought I’d add a part 2 and a few pictures.

I first came to Palermo in 1986. I had finished working a winter season in a ski resort in the north of Italy and came down with a Sicilian friend I’d been working with.  I remember it well. We took the train down from Torino – it took 24 hours. My friend’s family mistakenly thought I was his girlfriend and treated me embarrassingly like the guest of honour.  I remember Sunday lunch for 21 people in a tiny one-bedroomed flat with several tables joined together to make one great long table that started on the balcony and ended in the hallway. We drank white Sicilian wine mixed with coca-cola and I had to constantly remind my friend’s family to speak Italian (that I could speak) rather than Sicilian (that I couldn’t). They made me take off my modest jewellery before leaving the house to go to the market as, in those days, street robbery was common and handbags were regularly slit with knives to empty the contents without their owners realising! It was a great experience and I was happy to re-visit Palermo after so long.

Palermo has cleaned up its act a lot since those days and is now a smart and cultured city with some stunning architecture, grand churches and theatres, smart shops and a harbour full of yachts. These days the city is full of huge restaurants with enormous tables outside and business people and tourists rub shoulders in the narrow alleyways and giant squares.  A few minutes walk from the grandeur of Palermo’s city centre are some of the city’s famous markets which operate both during the day and at night.

I arrived in Palermo in the evening and took a bus to the town centre.  A Sicilian guy chatted to me all the way which was amusing!  I walked for 10-15 minutes along deserted main streets to my B+B which was confusingly situated on the 2nd floor of an otherwise quite scruffy building. Inside the place was warm, clean and nicely decorated and my room was huge and welcoming.  The receptionist was friendly and directed me to La Vucciria, Palermo’s famous night market and a good place to get dinner.

The streets were eerily empty until I turned the corner into an alleyway just off the enormous Piazza San Domenico and found crowds of black-clad young people clutching beer bottles, eating street food and just hanging out in the smoke-filled darkness of a little square at the end of a very dark and dingy alleyway.  Some tables had been put out and they were surrounded by red plastic chairs. Several open-air grills were giving off clouds of smoke and the aromas of delicious food cooking filled the air. There was music playing in the background and the crowds chatted as they queued (in a loose, disorderly Italian kind of way).  Some older people (30s!) sat at tables eating whilst Palermo’s youth stood around smoking, swigging beer and looking cool. It was only about 9 pm and obviously the beginning of the night.  The square got busier and busier.

The atmosphere was slightly intimidating and I didn’t feel comfortable staying there int he square but there were some slightly more tourist-friendly restaurants along the alleyway with tables outside and, with a little bit of encouragement from a jolly waiter from Morocco called Mohammed who tempted me in with a taster plate of caponata, a delicious Sicilian aubergine dish. I sat outside and had a plate of spaghetti with clams and some Sicilian white wine.  It felt nice and safe there and I had a great time chatting to the waiters and watching a wide variety of people wandering past.  Mohammed talked about the plight of the ever-increasing number of immigrants and the difficulties they encounter here. He told me that he advised his friends to stay in Morocco. I had a great night at La Vucciria.  It looked a bit scary but actually wasn’t and it was so unexpected!

The next morning I had a great breakfast in the tiny B+B breakfast room chatting with the other guests over jam-filled croissants and delicious espressos. Christian, the receptionist, originally from French Guyana, told me his wife was from Palermo and how they had returned from Paris to her native city as she wanted to give birth to their first child there.  After breakfast I walked the length of the Via Roma to the enormous Palermo Centrale train station, also home to the bus station.  I took a bus to Trapani and sat back and enjoyed the views of rolling green hills on one side and little coastal villages and the sea on the other.

The bus dropped me right at the harbour in precisely the place where the hydrofoils leave for the Egadi islands.  I was delighted to see that they are the exact same hydrofoils that operate the service to the Aeolian Islands – my old friends!  I left mainland Sicily for a little jaunt around the islands.  I came back a few days later and headed back to Palermo for another night and full day of exploring. I stayed in a different (and nicer) place this time (Bagnasco 18 suite&terrace http://www.booking.com) and, after an afternoon of exploring the city, treated myself to a hotel picnic of some Arancini (deep fried stuffed rice balls) and Cannoli (Sicilian cream-filled pastries) from the expensive patisserie around the corner. Delicious!

Giuseppe, the nice kind B+B owner, allowed me to keep my room until the following afternoon so I didn’t have to lug my bag around all day. It was raining in the morning but I set off after breakfast armed with a rain mac and an umbrella to wander aimlessly around Palermo.  I strolled down the pedestrianised Via Maqueda and found my way to the city’s stunning cathedral – La Cattedrale Metropolitana Primaziale della Santa Vergine Maria Assunta – the most impressive and enormous religious building I have ever seen (and a great place to shelter from the rain). “Operibus Credite” read the words which appear under the beautiful and enormous clock – the first part of the full motto Operibus Credite, et non Verbis – “Believe in deeds, not words”. The Villa Bonanno is a huge square park around the corner from the cathedral, full of amazing tall palm trees, statues and fountains – the perfect place for a sit down on a bench and admire the trees (if it weren’t raining).

Palermo is full of architectural wonders but I only had time to see a couple. I visited the stunning examples of Arab-Norman architecture in Piazza Bellini – firstly the church known as The Martorana (Concattedrale Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio), the seat of the parish of San Nicolò dei Greci with its awe-inspiring frescoes, mosaics and iconography and its next door neighbour, the stunning 12th century home of the Order of Chiesa di San Cataldo with its 3 distinctive red domes, currently under restoration by a team of experts who you can watch at work for a small entry fee.

I wandered down cobbled alleyways, peered into backstreet workshops, drank tiny espressos and ate fried aubergine panini in a jolly bar with friendly locals and watched a car, parked without the handbrake on, slide driverless down the road crashing into flower pots and other cars once the car in front of it was driven away!

Taxi drivers shouted at horse and carriage drivers and brought traffic to a standstill with their middle of the road arguments. Hoards of University students swarmed around the bars and bookshops in the streets next to the Cathedral. The Palermitanos are loud, jolly and very chatty.  Life is lived in the streets, in the bars and cafés and everywhere you go there are groups of people chatting and laughing, shouting and waving their arms around.  It doesn’t rain here very often and people seemed not to know what to do with themselves as many of the usual table and chairs had been moved inside because of the bad weather.

I discovered two of Palermo’s renowned daytime street markets. Il Baccaro and Il Capo are sprawling street markets selling fruit, vegetables, fish and all manner of household items. I saw massive cabbages and a special type of green cauliflower that grows locally, gigantic purple aubergines, crates of orange and green prickly pears all piled high and sold very cheaply next to stalls selling olives, capers and ropes of dried chillies. Some of the vegetables were bigger than I have ever seen anywhere! Huge swordfish were sliced with long sharp knives, the heads complete with ‘sword’ on display on the slab to let people know what is available. Salty anchovies are sold by the kilo from giant tins. Striped tarpaulins tied up with ropes protected the stalls from the rain and elderly ladies with wheeley shopping trolleys carried on shopping regardless of the weather.  I tried to take photos unobtrusively but felt quite embarrassed taking them at all.  This was local colour at its very best!

I loved Palermo. It’s a fascinating mix of a sophisticated and elegant city with grand buildings, historical splendour and sophisticated fine dining mixed with a raw, edgy and poor-but-colourful underbelly of street markets, graffiti, trendy street food and a vibrant street-based nightlife. I found the people of Sicily to be friendly, fun and sociable, cheerful and helpful and always ready with a joke and a smile.  Go with friends, wander aimlessly, see the churches and the markets, visit the Cathedral and take the roof tour, eat Arancini and Cannoli then, after dark, grab a beer and some street food in the Vucciria and soak up the atmosphere.

The efficient and cheap airport bus service departs punctually from the centre of town. Sadly, the weather was so bad that our ‘plane couldn’t land at Palermo and had to be re-routed to Catania.  Five hours later we finally took off! Goodbye Sicily – I’ll be back to see more of you soon.

NEXT ISLAND: Favignana in the Egadi Islands is next.