Walking Around Palermo (Featuring Actually Going Into Places): Part Due

Palermo's Cathedral

Have I mentioned yet how much I love Palermo? I know Palermo gets very little attention when people book their whirlwind tours of all the great sights in Italy. But it should.

Because all roads in Palermo lead to the Quatto Canti, I ended up at the Quattro Canti. This is the Four Corners. And there are four buildings at each of the four corners, each in the style of the other, with the concave facade. Each has a different statue of the same theme. On the bottom floor of each are each of the four seasons. On the second floor are each of the four Spanish kings of Sicily. And on the third floor are each of the four patron saints of Palermo.

One of things I love about this city is that the compact historic core is very walkable. It looks like it is many blocks long, but the blocks are exceedingly short. And, soon enough, I reached my next destination: the Cathedral of Palermo.

It's huge. The exterior is beautiful,

Construction of the cathedral also began in the 1100's. Are you getting the impression that this was some sort of Golden Age for Sicily in general and Palermo in particular?

Let's have a look inside.

It's beautiful in that "cathedral" sort of way.

I'm not denigrating the place. I'm really not. And the exterior really is magnificent. It's just that it is no Martorana.

But it is a whole lot bigger.

Again, it was spectacular. But just a few minutes earlier I saw the most beautiful church interior I've ever seen in all my life. How do you live up to that?

This is one of the side doors into the cathedral.

One last look at the exterior before we move on.

This is the view toward the Norman Palace. The Norman Palace is one of the absolute must-see attractions in Palermo. I did not go in because I forgot that this was the Norman Palace when I was out walking.

There's always tomorrow. Time to hoof it to my next destination.

The enormous Teatro Massimo.

It is reputedly the second largest theater in the world. I was thinking. It's really easy to claim to be the second most of anything, isn't it? If you claim to be first, to be the most, someone will fight you on that. But claim to be number two? No one is going to fight you and claim, "No. We're second best. Not you." So why not go for it? Why not proclaim yourself #2?

Anyway, I did go in the Teatro Massimo. But the next English language tour was too long to wait. And I had other places to see.

Off we go to the next stop for the day. It's not too far.

Introductory Walk around the Historic Core of Palermo

After dark on the street in front of my hotel. Don't be fooled by the apparent quiet.
It's actually a lively street party scene facing the other direction.

Palermo has a deep and fascinating history. It is about as old as Rome. But it was founded by the Phoenicians and was tied to the Phoenician outpost (and arch-rival of Rome) Carthage long before it fell under Roman rule. It was conquered by the Arabs. It was liberated by the Normans (at the behest of a pope), who also left a strong imprint on the city. When the last Norman king died without leaving an heir, Sicily fell under the Holy Roman Empire and, later, was ruled in absentia by Aragon, Spain. Palermo and Sicily were only reluctantly corraled into the unified Italy.

This is the view from the balcony of my hotel room in the historic core of Palermo, near the sea.

Palermo may have faded quite a bit from its heights reached in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, when it was one of the most important cities in the world. But even frayed and decaying, it still looks great.

I took a walk around the historic area (at least the part of it closest to sea water) just to get the lay of the land.

The streets are narrow. There seem to be no right angles at any intersections. But it's compact and easy to navigate.

This is the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Catena. St. Mary of the Chain, a reference to chaining the port closed in medieval times.

The church is near the port. In particular, it is near the part of the port that is the home to pleasure craft.

The picture might look better if I was not snapping into the sun.

These are the Porta Felice, the Renaissance / Baroque era "gates" into the city from the harbor.

And on the land side of the gates, something wedding-ish seems to be afoot.

I'm guessing pre-wedding bridal photography taking place at a photogenic historic locale. The real wedding has to be somewhere else.

It's time to venture deeper into the historic city.

I don't know what this is.

I just know it does not date back to medieval times.

And this is a huge tree. Is it a banyan tree? Do they have those here?

At this point I decided I am going to walk to the most important intersection in Palermo. Quattro Canti. And I will walk along the Cassaro, as was its old Arab name. It is the main street through the city to the harbor. It's now officially called Via Vittorio Emanuele II. But what does Victor Emmanuel have to do with Palermo?

But there are so many interesting stops along the way, even though it is a short distance. Such as this:

Why all those statues there?

What's the point?

Does there even need to be a point? The point is that this is known as Fontana Pretoria. Piazza Pretoria.

Which is a stone's throw from Quattro Canti. And I am referring to how far I can throw a stone, which isn't much of a distance at all. This again, is a major intersection, marking the crossing of two very important, very major thoroughfares: Via Vittorio Emanuele II, or, as we prefer to call it, the Cassaro, and Via Maqueda.

And yet the streets are so narrow.

There's a building with slight variations of the same theme at each corner of this intersection.

It is the hub of Palermo.

Time to head back to the hotel. But there is always time to stop to snap some church exterior photos. This is Chiesa di San Domenico.

And this must be St. Dominick, founder of the Dominican order, at the top of that column.

I took a wrong turn trying to walk back to my hotel. I got lost in the warren of little narrow streets when I ended up walking in the opposite direction from what I intended, heading away from the hotel. 

No need to panic. Right when I realized I was lost, I looked up and saw this big map of the city with "You are here" written in English. I hadn't seen a map like that in Palermo up to that point, the point I needed it. (I could've easily gotten un-lost as I had my street map with me and I could have figured it out. But it was weird seeing a big map off to the side of the street with an English language "You are here" right when I needed it.)

I do like getting safely lost in new cities. It's how you learn the lay of the place.

So, after walking around, some of the walk with gelato in hand, I only wanted a light supper. I decided "more pizza." So I ate at the Voglia Di Pizza right next to my hotel.

Weirdly enough, my first pizza in Sicily was not "Sicilian," at least not the style of pizza we call "Sicilian" stateside. I again had the diavolo, with spicy salami, plenty of onion, and black olives (still with their pits intact). The pizza was very good. It was not "knock my socks off" awesome. The socks stayed on my feet. But the price was a sock-er knock-er off-er. The bill was 5.50 euros, including a bottle of sparkling water.