As usual with these travel blogs, the actual traveling sometimes gets in the way of the important work of reporting to our loyal readers about what we are eating on our trip. So we may have to skip over a few things for now, and catch you up as we go forward with the last leg of our trip in Sicily.

We left Naples via EasyJet airlines, which is very aptly named. The flight was shorter than going from San Diego to Los Angeles. The airport in Palermo is small and very easy to navigate. In no time at all we had collected our baggage and met our driver, Giuseppe just outside of baggage claim. It took us about 45 minutes to reach the center of Palermo where our hotel, the Plaza Opera Hotel, is located. The Plaza Opera was frankly a bit of a come-down from our fabulous quarters in Naples, but that was to be expected. It is actually a very nice 4 star hotel (which means you get bathrobes) with a great location right in the middle of the old city, very close to the opera house (as the hotel's name implies).

My Dad would sometimes describe someone who was a good person but lacking in some respect as a "diamond in the rough". Somehow I was reminded of that phrase when seeing Palermo. It is a city of faded glory. You can imagine how opulent it was in the year 1500. But now many parts of it are dusty and crumbling. There are definitely some well-preserved areas, mostly the nicer residential districts and the central district historic buildings, but the overall feeling of the city is one of many years of decline and neglect. But it is undeniably historic, and many of the old buildings are impressively well preserved.

We began our first full day with a really fun tour of the historic central district in a small vintage three wheeled motor scooter called a Piaggio Ape Calessino.

We got to visit the Piazza Marina, an ancient town square which features the oldest and largest Banyan tree in Europe. This type of tree is known as the "strangler tree" as it kills most of the vegetation surrounding it.

We also got to visit the magnificent cathedral of Palermo, built in 1184 by the Normans (those same Normans who had invaded Great Britain a century earlier):

The interior of the church has many very beautiful gold mosaics. Some of the designs do have an Arabic flavor to them, recalling the presence of Muslims in Palermo for a few centuries prior to the arrival of the Normans. That's me with our guide, Davide, at the bottom right.

Then it was time for a bit of lunch in the Mercato del Capo, one of the oldest open air markets where they sell meat, fish, fruits and vegetables, as you might expect, but they also do a big business in selling local street food, such as arancini (rice balls), panelle (chickpea flour fritters), and cannoli (no translation needed). Davide (a different Davide than we had for our guide in Naples) ordered for us so we didn't need to worry about what to get. One treat we declined was Pani ca meusa, a sandwich filled with veal spleen and lung. It is reported to be very delicious, but I just couldn't.

In the afternoon we did an excursion to Cefalu, a beachside historic city that was just recently featured in an article in the Guardian newspaper. There is a Norman church in Cefalu that is really impressive with its golden mosaics depicting Jesus, Mary and many different saints.

Also a modern stained glass window which was very colorful, although we could not make out what it means:

After touring the upper part of the city, we walked down to the seaside and enjoyed the beautiful view of the Mediterranean Sea:

Here we are on the beach of Cefalu:

And a couple of very nice photos from Cath:

On our way back to Palermo we asked Davide if he could recommend a nice restaurant within walking distance from our hotel for dinner. He immediately replied "Appeti!". So we took his advice and walked there for dinner. It was certainly one of the best meals of our trip so far. We started with two very delicious dishes. I had the orange and olives with anchovies:

Cath had a platter of grilled vegetables which was really fresh and good:

For our second course I got spaghetti vongole e cozze (clams and mussels) and it was the best rendition of this dish I ever ate. Lots of clams and mussels and such a delicious sauce tasting of the sea. Cath had a famous local dish, Bucatini Le Sarde (pasta with sardines anchovies and breadcrumbs). We were too busy eating these to take any photos. And for dessert, a deconstructed cannolo: We found out that one is a cannolo, and more than one are cannoli. We never understood that before this trip. Thus ended another really fun, interesting and flavorful day.

More soon!

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