Palermo, Sicily.

Wow, how to describe this city. Definitely has a different vibe from the other areas we've been to. This city was once one of the largest and grandest in all of Europe. Seems to have had a building boom and prosperity around the early 1600's. Many of the larger and elaborate church's were started at that time. However, we have been in some buildings much older, for the example the small church of San Cataldo was built in 1154. There are beautiful palazzos and buildings all over the place, some in good condition but many needing some TLC. I'm sitting right now on our roof top terrace that has a 360 degree view of the old part of the city (the centro storico) and directly across the street from me is the Palazzo Ajutamicristo started just a few years back in 1495.

We have spent most of the last 2 days alternating between enjoying our terrace and the views, walking to the gelato festival, finding piazzas and palazzos, going though beautiful churches, walking along the water front, visiting markets and trying out the street food. The weather has been fantastic too.

Here's a little bit of Palermo trivia for you (apologies to my friend Novella. who was born here, in case I've made any errors!). During the Second World War parts of Palermo were bombed and destroyed. After the war, many people who lived out in the country moved into the city for work. The government here, likely corrupted by the mafia, decided that rather than fix up the old buildings they would approve many construction projects in the "New City". Lot's of expansion during the 1950's to the 1980's occurred with little regard for parks, existing buildings that merited keeping or restoring, or any quality towards architectural design or construction standards. We saw many of these when coming into the city. It has now been dubbed the "Sacking of Palermo". I found that out when I was looking for info about the bombing that happened in 1943. But the good news is that with more support from the government and from courageous local politicians, they have made great strides to get their city back. It seems to me there is great potential here. Even in the town of Corleone, the birthplace of the mafia, there is an anti-mafia museum. I can only imagine how difficult it must be for those towns folks to try and lose that image. Just the word "Corleone" of course makes you think of the Godfather.

Lastly, I absolutely can't believe how cheap food is. We picked up some items at a local supermarket and here are a few things that we bought:

2 litre bottled water for 0.19 Euro ea

A coupled bottles of beer for 1.78

A good Chianti wine (2014) for 4.56

Fresh pasta for 1.50

1/2 dozen eggs for 1.00

500ml yogurt for .90

Plus pesto sauce and other things for dinner. The whole thing came to around 14 Euro which is about 20 Canadian bucks. Love this city! It is starting to grown on us for sure.

We're off tomorrow, will be picking up our car and headed to the other side of the island. We'll be in Sicily for another 5 days I think. Ciao for now!