Palermo & Monreale
Palermo hit us like a slap in the face. After a very calm and punctual 13-hour ferry crossing from Sardinia and feeling a bit dozy from limited sleep we drove out of the port and into a frenzy of tooting horns, with Fiats and scooters zipping in all directions. We bumped and lurched over the rugged pot-hole filled streets and squeezed through narrow lanes lined with shabby buildings, where market stalls overflowed from the pavement and old men on bikes wobbled past a jumble of parked cars. It was 8.30 on Saturday morning and the city was buzzing. It reminded us of Vietnam or China; noisy, colourful, chaotic and cluttered, and complete with those 3-wheeled mini trucks piled high with produce teetering to market.
Our campsite was a mixed parking lot in the middle of town with an area for campervans; electricity connections, a shower and toilet, and all-important Wi-Fi. You couldn’t get much closer to the city centre and for only 20 Euro a night it was great value.
After our early arrival we had the full day to explore and after freshening up headed into town. Palermo is Sicily’s capital and was first founded by the Phoenicians in the eighth century BC. Since then it has been ruled by Greeks, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Holy Roman emperors, Angevins, Argonese, Bourbons and Austrians – among others – and all have left their mark on the city’s architecture, creating an historical collage.
Away from the busy backstreet markets the city was calmer, but the buildings are tatty and well-worn, the footpaths chipped and gardens overgrown. We walked the short distance to the historic centre, through the majestic Porto Nuovo, a city gate built in 1535 after victory over the Tunisians, and down to Palermo Cathedral. There’s nothing shabby about the cathedral. A striking building with enormous presence, the cathedral is understandably one of the most important architectural monuments in Sicily. It was built in 1184 by the Normans on the site of a Muslim Mosque that was previously built over a Christian basilica. A passage from the Koran is still engraved in one of the columns. The impressive exterior builds up high expectations for the interior which, although lovely, were not as memorable as others we had seen in our travels. We climbed the stairs to the roof terrace and soaked up the views across Palermo. On the terrace we overheard an Italian woman telling her friends, in English, about the city, and taking the opportunity Mr Love asked her if she knew what a particular building was that we had been discussing. She explained it was a market and then went on to point out different areas of the inner city and make some suggestions on places to visit. She told us Via Vittorio is the most important street in Palermo. In the past it was the street joining Palermo with the city of Monreale in the hills and produce from the inland orchards and farms was moved along this road to the ships waiting in Palermo’s harbour.
Outside the cathedral a woman approached us and told us of a Sicilian artisan market being held in an historic building nearby. We took a look and ended up buying me some beautifully crafted earrings.
The pedestrian area of Via Vittorio Emanuale was busy and tourist shops selling brightly coloured ceramics and mosaics lined the street. We stopped for some arancini in a street food deli, a Sicilian specialty of delectable rice balls with different filling and oozing with mozzarella.
Where Via Vittorio Emanuale dissects the other main thoroughfare, Via Maqueda, is Quattro Canti, or Piazza Vigliena, a Baroque square. The piazza is octagonal, four sides being the streets and the remaining four sides, Baroque buildings. The ornate near-identical facades contain fountains with statues of the four seasons, the four Spanish kings of Sicily, and of the patronesses of Palermo. We turned into Via Maqueda and walked up to the Massimo Theatre Opera House. This stately building was built at the end of the 19th century and is Italy’s largest theatre with seating for 1,387.
From here we caught the free bus that runs around the historic centre of Palermo, a great initiative benefiting locals and tourists alike. The bus stopped for 10 minutes at the waterfront, so we took the opportunity to admire Porta Felice, a monumental city gate of Palermo. Like many of the buildings it’s beautifully ornate but crying out for a good scrub. Back on the bus, we completed the circuit to Massimo Theatre. It was time for a gelato to regain our energy. Even though it was a calm ferry crossing we still didn’t sleep well and felt a bit boat-lagged.
Our bus ride had given us our bearings and we walked back through the historic centre to the romantic Fontanta Pretoria, an ornate 1500’s marble fountain with curvy nude statues of mythological figures. It is very Italian. Behind the fountain is the church of San Cataldo, an old Arabic-style Norman church built in 1154 with mosaic floors and three red domes. Next door is Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio, a domed Norman-era church with ornate baroque remodelling and known for its Byzantine mosaics. This collage is complicated.
Back up Via Vittorio Emanuale is the 9th century Palazzo dei Normanii, the Royal Palace of Palermo. I had read about Capella Palatina, the gold chapel within the palace, and was keen to see it. Andrew was prepared to give it a miss but when we arrived at the ticket office it was a lot cheaper than we’d expected so I managed to convince him to come in. He was pleased he did as the chapel alone was worth the visit – truly stunning, with a gilded interior of elaborate Byzantine mosaics and paintings. The rest of the palace consisted of the ornate royal apartments, beautifully decorated with sumptuous furnishings and antiques.
We were beat and made our way back to the campervan. It had been a long day.
The next morning, we caught the bus to Monreale, 8kms from Palermo on the slope of Monte Caputo. This picturesque town overlooks the fertile valley of “La Conca d’oro” (the Golden Shell), famed for its orange, olive and almond trees, which are exported in large quantities. It was a beautiful day and the view down the valley and across Palermo was lovely. Apart from the view, Monreale’s 12th century Norman Cathedral is its main attraction and is famous for the gold mosaics that line the interior. It was Sunday and Mass was just about to begin when we arrived. We were allowed to stand at the back and watch. A church always seems more beautiful when it is being used for what it was built for. The mosaics are exquisite, and being made from 2,200kgs of pure gold they are truly opulent. This cathedral, like its counterpart below in Palermo, reflects Sicily’s varied past – a combination of Norman, Byzantine and Arab.
Outside, the sun was warm, and the mood relaxed. We ate calzone, arancini, aubergine and artichoke in Piazza Guglielmo, wandered through the cobbled lanes, bought a ceramic wall tile and a scarf, then headed down the hill to Palermo.
It was election day in Italy and when we’d left for Monreale we’d passed lines of people outside polling booths. In Italy, like Spain, everyone goes out on a Sunday, so it may have been a normal Sunday, or it may have been busier because of the election, either way Palermo was humming. We walked back into the historic centre and couldn’t believe the sea of people along Via Maqueda. The atmosphere was vibrant, live music played, unsteady scoops of gelato balanced on children’s cones, café tables spilled into the street filled with people sipping hot chocolates or vino bianco and rosso, and dogs of all shapes and sizes, decked out in the latest doggy fashions, proudly accompanied their people through the throng.
Trapani & Agrigento
The next morning, we left Palermo and headed west to Trapani. The countryside in this part of Sicily is hilly and fertile, and the closer we got to Trapani the more vineyards we passed. Trapani is a port town with a large fishing industry, and the province also produces olives and wine – more wine in fact than the Italian region of Tuscany. The ancient Greeks had a settlement here and over the centuries it has always been an important trading hub for whoever ruled at the time.
We intended to drive up the nearby peak of mount Erice where there is a small medieval village and apparently stunning views across the province. However, it was a cloudy day and Erice was shrouded in a thick grey blanket. We ummed and ahhed for a while and decided the twisty narrow road to the top on a blustery day would take a lot of effort for very little gain, as we wouldn’t be able to see anything. I had read that this was a regular occurrence and many tourists were left disappointed. When you’re travelling you quickly realise that a picture postcard experience is not a guarantee and you can’t possibly see everything in a travel guide.
Trapani itself has an elegant historic quarter built on a peninsula. We wandered through the streets and along the sea wall, noticing the graffiti on the walls and rubbish in the street, both of which seem prevalent in Sicily. There were some lovely buildings with ornate honey and alabaster facades, and the baroque cathedral with its emerald green tiled dome was very impressive, but we weren’t bowled over by Trapani and decided not to stay the night and instead push on to Agrigento.
The drive along the coast from Trapani to Agrigento took most of the afternoon and it was early evening when we arrived at our campsite on the beach. This was another sosta, a parking lot with an area for campervans and the necessary facilities. This sosta was particularly well looked after and the owner was very welcoming, even offering for sale his family olive oil and wine. Mr Love took him up on the vino rosso. At only 12 euro a night it was by far one of the better value campsites we’d stayed at.
The next day we took the bus to Agrigento, a beautiful town on the hillside overlooking fertile farmland and the coastline beyond. We walked through Porta di Ponte, the medieval gate at the entrance of the old town and were immediately captivated. Agrigento is a charming maze of narrow lanes and stairways leading through to piazzas and churches and dotted with pizzerias and artisan stores. It is clean and well-kept, and there were window boxes brimming with flowers. The steep climb to the Norman Cathedral was worth the puff with an incredible view from the bell tower across the valley. Lunch was from a little deli filled with locals –an arancini each, a piece of pizza for Andrew, and stuffed artichoke for me. It’s artichoke season and we have passed fields and fields of them being harvested, both in Sicily and Sardinia. Artichoke motifs are everywhere – on gates, building facades, ornaments, fountains, friezes, ceramics, wall tiles etc. They symbolise hope for a prosperous future.
Agrigento was a very pleasant surprise, as the real reason we had come was for what lay on the hills below this picturesque town – the Valley of the Temples. The remains of the ancient Greek city that lie here are considered some of the more impressive and important archaeological finds of their kind. Building began in the Valley of the Temples in the 6th century BC with the foundation of the ancient Greek colony of Akragas, one of the largest on the Mediterranean Sea. The archaeological area of the Valley of the Temples is vast, covering 1300 hectares, but the area we visited was the ridge where the Doric temples were built. Seeing these imposing temples silhouetted on the skyline as we drove in the previous afternoon gave me goose bumps. Up close the marvel of these structures becomes real. Huge columns erected without machinery and fashioned to be majestic and refined, honouring the divine beauty of the gods and goddesses they were built for. The colour of these temples is unusual, built from the local calcarenite rock they are a rusty red and glow in the sunlight. After studying classics at school and university it was wonderous to walk in an area so steeped in antiquity and have the books come alive.
Syracuse, Giardini Naxos & Taormina
It is impossible to escape the ancient Greeks in Sicily – as if you’d want to. Our next destination was Syracuse, where an enormous Greek settlement was founded by Corinthians in 734 BC and for a long time rivalled Athens as the most important city in the Greek world. It was the birthplace of Archimedes the mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer, and of the playwright Aeschylus whose tragedies I once studied at length. The philosopher Plato also spent a few years in Syracuse.
We stayed at another sosta in the new part of the city, this one council owned. Like the other two sostas there were only a couple of campers there, but it the facilities were perfectly adequate, and it was only a 10-minute walk to the old city. The afternoon we arrived we walked across to the nearby Neapolis Archaeological Park where Greek and Roman ruins are in abundance.
The next morning, we walked down to the waterfront and across the bridge to the historic part of Syracuse on the island of Ortygia, where a labyrinth of charming ancient and medieval streets gave us plenty to explore. Although originally Greek, this area has been lived in by many peoples of Sicily and was the centre of Byzantine and Judaic civilisation on the island. Here, once again, the combination of different cultures influencing architecture makes this city a fascinating place to visit.
It is a small area, and we had all day, so we started with some more Greek history in Piazza Pancali. In the middle of the piazza is the Temple of Apollo, the oldest Greek temple in Sicily – in fact the oldest Doric Greek temple outside present-day Greece. Only a few columns and walls remain, but it is impressive all the same. From there we wandered through to Piazza Duomo, glorious in alabaster marble. Here the cathedral takes pride of place. What makes this cathedral special is that it was built around the Greek Temple of Athena, and the massive columns of the Doric temple are visible inside the cathedral – one civilisation respecting another that had gone before. Further on, by the sea wall is the freshwater Spring of Arethusa where in Greek mythology Artemis changed Arethusa into a spring of water to escape the river god Alpheus, it was here that the transformed maiden emerged. From here we saw Mount Etna for the first time, capped in snow. The sun was warm, and we ambled slowly along the sea wall to Maniaces Castle on the point. A castle was first built on the point by the Byzantine’s but was at its grandest two centuries later in the medieval era, and then, as with many castles, parts were destroyed and extensively modified over successive centuries.
It was time for lunch and the Spring of Arethusa was the perfect spot for that. We headed back and found a café selling what else but arancini. Those rice balls are getting addictive.
When we got to Ortygia in the morning we had seen a market, but not wanting to carry food around all day had left it until after lunch to take a proper look. We bought fresh fish and stocked up on veges before coming across a deli with a huge queue waiting for sandwiches. These weren’t your ordinary sandwiches, they were stacked high with every deli cuisine imaginable and the sandwich maker was a true showman keeping the crowd entertained while handing out samples of their homemade mozzarella. What a shame we’d eaten. The mozzarella however was too good to refuse, and I bought a block of their famous smoked mozzarella. While I was waiting in line for the cheese Andrew got talking to a German couple who were attempting to eat their giant sandwiches. They came from Gottingen, where my cousin lives. They expected we’d have no idea where that was and were surprised we’d been there. The coincidences continued when they told us they booked a trip to New Zealand later this year. It’s a small world.
Laden with produce we walked back to camp for a nice fish dinner.
The next day we drove up the coast past Mount Etna to the seaside resort town of Giardini Naxos. Here they proudly promote the fact that this was the first Greek colony in Sicily, established before the more well-known Syracuse and Agrigento. We weren’t here to see Giardini Naxos, but instead the mountain town of Taormina 200 metres above it. However, being a mountain town there are no campsites there. We were pleased to find the campsite we had chosen was almost full. We had started to feel a bit lonely after barely any campervans in Sardinia and only a few in the parts of Sicily we had visited. Here there were mostly Italians and Germans, but also French, Dutch and Belgians. It was a lovely site with welcoming owners and we immediately decided to stay for three nights.
The next day we caught the bus up the mountain to Taormina. It is very much an affluent tourist town and is often described as a mountain “resort”. There are endlessly winding medieval streets and tiny passages, loads of restaurants, cafés and ice cream shops selling their famous “ice-cream cannelloni”, as well as upmarket boutiques and swanky hotels. Although it is only about 200 meters above sea level, Taormina seems much higher, probably because it’s built on steep rocky cliffs with sheer drops. The Greeks lived here, and then the Romans. Andrew had seen enough of the Greeks so waited for me while I explored the Teatro Antico di Taormina, an ancient amphitheatre. He missed a treat. It was magnificent. Located just above Taormina the view from the theatre is of the town and rugged mountains in one direction and the coastline and sea far below in the other, and in the background is Mount Etna, smoking away under a shroud of cloud. It is a breath-taking location. With a setting like this it must be hard to concentrate on the action on stage.
We spent our last full day in Sicily in Giardini Naxos. Many of the holidays apartments and hotels in the resort town were closed up for winter but the town itself had plenty of life and the beach was lovely. We went for a walk along the coast. The rocks are black and volcanic. It was a lovely sunny day and Mount Etna was fully visible. She’s currently erupting and has been for the last four years. Puffing away in the background the presence of this volcano is always felt.
It only seemed fitting to eat out on our last night in Sicily and we found a waterfront restaurant with night-time views back up to Taormina and, as always, our Italian meal was well enjoyed.
The next day we drove on to Messina to catch the ferry to mainland Italy. The highway took us under the hills. Many of the tunnels looked a bit worse for wear and were often unlit. The roads in Sicily have not been great. The ferry links Sicily to mainland Italy and runs every half hour 24/7 365 days. It was a seamless experience, we drove on, briefly enjoyed the view from the deck, and 20 minutes later drove off. Our 12th ferry journey with the campervan complete. Now the next part of our Italian adventure begins.
Sicily surprised us. At first, we didn’t know what to think, it was more worn than we expected, the buildings scruffy, the roads rough, very little new development and lots of rubbish. But the history is overwhelming, the food is divine, and people are passionately Sicilian, warm and welcoming.
