Day 34: Palermo, Sicily

We started the day without much of a plan (walk down one man road, turn up another). It seemed like ever other block had a church, statue, fountain, or something.

Eventually we made it to the catacombs, which is officially the creepiest place we've ever been. Apparently a hundred or so years ago, it was all the rage to scoff at the coffin approach and go with the hanging/drying meat method. So about 25 ft below the cemetery there are a series of tunnels with two or three levels of niches in the wall with (as my bud Rick Steves puts it) bodies at various stages of decay dressed in their Sunday best.

You couldn't make a scarier haunted house. Right upon entering are skeletons dressed in 1850s tuxedos hanging on a wall. Move further and you see entire families, including young ones in little dresses, mounted on the wall looking down at you. Kevin walked briskly through and back to the alive part of Palermo. (note - as I was writing this part, the window on the train out of Palermo just dropped open, I think they're after us...)

After the crypt we walked to what we now call "loser castle." We approached it from the side and we were not impressed, but figured we'd pay the ten Euro to go in anyway. It was a waste of money, a couple clay pots and empty rooms is all we found, and a security guard telling us to stop taking pictures (why take picts of loser castle you may ask, the pictures were of things outside of the castle).

We left and went back to the happening area where we had dinner the night before to grab lunch. We had some pizza (see picture) and listened to Tom Jones music (including the Tom Jones version of "All By Myself," the same song, different artist, that we heard on the ride up to Mt. Vesuvius). Now, I'm not sure if the Italians put on American music just because we show up or if they regularly listen to it, but either way, it always manages to be a funny song selection.

At this point, it was really hot (95?), so as we walked around and church-hopped to cool off. This is when we realized that for some reason, Monday was wedding day. We saw no less than 6 weddings being set up (wedding parties gathering outside the different churches). At first we (Kevin) was a bit timid to go inside the churches for fear of disrupting. But each time the wedding hadn't actually started, so we'd be able to look around.

That is, until the last one. We walked in to the back of the church and hear the starting wedding music and the crowd walking towards us for some reason. we jetted for the back left, but then they turned towards us carrying flowers and camera men were almost bumping into us. Apparently something was about to happen at the back alter. We slipped back out the door and headed down the street rather quickly.

Eventually it was dinner time and we walked around a bit but no place seemed like it could top the restaurant from the night before. So we ended up eating at the same place, which was again delicious. On the way, however, we ran into an unfortunately closed Rizzuto Cafe. After about 15 pictures, we moved on.

That's it for our stay here. We like Palermo; it is hot, dirty, and busy, but it has charm, history, and good food and wine.

This also marks our last night in Italy after 18 days (although we will make another stop in to stay at Lake Como in about a week). It seems we're just starting to understand the language a little bit, but we'll have to switch gears to Spanish tomorrow in Barcelona. The food has been great, but we're both looking forward to some non-Italian cuisine (ever eat Italian food 18 days straight?).