Stone upon stone: an Italian sojourn: Grit and graffiti in Palermo

Our trusty Maltese chauffeur, organised by the home exchange owners, arrived in the 4.15am early morning gloom to take us to the airport for our short flight to Palermo. Amazing how a 6.05am flight does not bother you when in the planning phase, but the reality was that it really impinged on our entire day. Because we had to get up so early--3.30am--we did not sleep well, waiting to ensure the alarm went off in good time. So, starting the day tired does not improve as the day goes on: you just get more sluggish. So we could hardly call our first day in Sicily an energetic one. Yet another lesson learned for the travel planning folio.

Malta can be windy at this time of the year, but, overall, we only had two days of light breezes with showers greying the skies, occasionally. Often one side of the sky could be grey and overcast, while the other could be pure clear blue. Today, our flight was 40 minutes and fast. All flights should be so. We had two ladies in the cockpit, a first for us, and Miss Bec gave them a 10 for take-off, and a 9/10 for landing: so they take the pilot's prize for pleasing her this trip: so far. The weather in Sicily seems to be similar to Malta, at least today: occasional grey skies, occasional patches of blue, and in any sun patches the temperature is such that you are tempted to pull off any jacket, only to have to put it on again if you move into the shade. Still, it is a very pleasant time to be a traveller here. It is so much easier in the cool than the heat.

We took a shuttle bus into the city centre, got off where most people alighted, at the Politeama stop; then trundled down past Teatro Massimo to our stop on the corner where we met the owner of our booked apartment for the six days we are actually to be in Palermo. We had three sets of stone stairs to climb tucked behind a locked wooden door with a low lintel accessed from a side laneway. Up we went to an old palazzo apartment that has the most amazing ceiling painting in the living room. Special. We think he implied that it was listed. There are so many little rooms that Bec was still losing her way, even at bedtime. Each is decorated in traditional antique-style furniture that suits the period of the house: with two bathrooms, one with a bidet, and a kitchen that is new, small, but well-kitted. Our renovated double glazed windows look down over the main street, Via Maqueda, and we have a view down to Teatro Massimo from there. We appear to be in the very heart of historic Palermo, but behind these noise blocking windows it is all peace and quiet.

Our first port of call was to find Italian SIMs and we had to walk barely 25 metres for that, across the road, where we found magnificent help and effort in broken English which was so much more functional than any broken Italian we might have attempted. I bought a large data SIM with only restricted calls that will assist with my blog research and postings. Pete bought a small phone SIM, with limited data. We could not quite get one prepaid card that suited all our needs, but this was a good solution: between the two of us, now, we have most things covered. Pete has already lost his charging cable so had to replace that. Every trip, it seems, he needs to buy a new one. My guess is that this one likely didn't quite leave home, or make the packing.

We ate Sicilian tostas for lunch along Via Maqueda: a treat we will forego in future. They were reasonably filling but fairly flavourless, soggy and unappealing, in truth. We had many coffees throughout the day to keep us functioning, and most of my espressos were delicious as Lavazza is everywhere here, tho' not as hot as I would like. Sicily seems to be going the way of Australia and serving lukewarm coffee in preference to hot. We tried our first genuine Sicilian cannoli: sweetened with white ricotta filling, and a red glace cherry for effect. We will likely limit our intake of these, too: tho' I have been looking forward to them.

We had barely started walking before we came across Quatro Canti one of the top sights in Palermo: a magnificent crossroads in the heart of the city. The heavily baroque facade of all four curved buildings face the busy piazza and are designed as the four seasons, with different floors holding statues in niches bearing the four viceroys who had ruled Palermo in lieu of a king up to the seventeenth century. This was commissioned by one of them, along with works of the four patron saints of Palermo, all guarding the crossroads. With a good restorative surface clean this corner piece would show all its beautiful features in contrast and could, again, be stunning.

Not far from here we came to a huge fountain, Fontana Pretorio, and learned its tale, which to us just encapsulated so much of Italian history. The fountain was created for a nobleman, Don Luigi de Toledo, for his garden in Florence. His garden had belonged to an order of St Dominican nuns, but after much pressure Don Luigi acquired it and commissioned a famous sculptor to create a fountain to offset the palazzo he built on the site. It had 48 statues and some 90 columns of wood in a long arbour, and was touted to be the most wonderful fountain in all of Italy, once completed.

Don Luigi ran into trouble with his finances and thought it wise to move to Naples. He sold the fountain to the Palermo city fathers who determined it should be disassembled in Florence, then reassembled into position in front of the Palazzo Pretoria, which houses the mayor and the municipality of Palermo. It arrived in 644 pieces. To make room for it they had to knock down several neighbouring buildings. But when they went to assemble it, they found the fountain to be incomplete: many of the original pieces were damaged in transit, but many did not arrive and are touted to have followed Don Luigi to Naples. I feared for the future health of the Don.

The work in Palermo was overseen by the son of the original sculptor in Florence, but as expenses mounted and time revealed all ills, the fountain came to be viewed as the Square of Shame: symbolising to the people of Palermo the corruption of the municipality. The nudity of the statues no doubt enhanced that perception with the locals.

After this, we hopped on to a Navette Gratis Palermo, a small free bus circling the historic centre which the kind owners of our apartment had recommended to us amongst the tourist maps and brochures they had prepared for our stay. It has been enlightening to observe, so far, that young black male workers from Africa and young women are the first to offer bus seats to the old or the infirm. Local men rarely do: young or old: in Malta, or in Sicily. They appear so entitled. I glare at them. They do not even look downcast. We learned little from our free bus tour other than it was incredibly crowded with locals many using it to bring home shopping for their evening meal, or to meet up with friends elsewhere in the city.

We saw one cyclist hit by a car: the bike and the rider were lying on the road as we passed. Then we saw a car sideswiped by a bus: both vehicles left empty in the fast driving lane, traffic swirling around them. Several times our bus had to swerve to avoid a mishap in Palermo's chaotic traffic where lanes are often not marked, and traffic weaves and tail-gates haphazardly all over the street. Lanes are meaningless, anyway. And pedestrian crossings are a misnomer. You take your life in your hands even when the lights indicate you might cross. We learned to put our heads down and just go, and let the drivers weave in front and behind us: otherwise we would be waiting for a gap all day.

Apart from that, many of the lanes and byways around the old historic city are filled with graffiti, and broken down old buildings in dire need of repair and renovation--and a clean. Niches and alcoves in buildings are filled with the homeless, who leave all their worldly goods piled under quilts and old cushioning that they find somewhere for free. These images on our bus drive were offset by views of fascinating piazzas that just flashed briefly by: often with either a palazzo or a cathedral at its core: with architecture so stunning that it is hard to conjecture why the rest is so ugly.

But, all this we will start to explore tomorrow.

Teatro Massimo, just metres from our apartment

The beautiful octagonal topped Chiosco Ribaudo: once the ticket seller stall
in the Art Nouveau grounds of the Teatro Massimo, now a tobacconist stall.