Day 19 Mediterranean Adventures: Palermo, Sicily

This capital city of Sicily is fast, brash, loud and exciting.  The distinct style of the city can't be experienced anywhere else.  Nearly 3,000 years old, Palermo holds a mix of architectural styles pointing to the wave upon wave of invaders who have claimed this city as their own.  There is no one style of people in this urban melting pot with its colorful history. Here, the Sicilian fusion of all things foreign --art, architecture, culture and lifestyle--exists at its most extreme:  elegant Baroque check to cheek with Arabic cupolas, high fashion shops competing with Byzantine street markets and Vespas parked against  Spanish Palazzi.

Our tour today is after lunch, so we enjoy a very quiet time on the ship with nearly everyone else off the ship on another excursion.  Today, we have selected mostly a "drive-by" tour.  ( that is good as Jerry says absolutely NO MORE CATHEDRALS)..

Our tour rapidly climbs up to a very high peak, Monte Pellegrino, overlooking the city where we capture great panorama shots of the city of 1 million people--20% of the population of Sicily.   As we travel down from the top of Monte Pellegrino we are now able to capture photos of the most gorgeous beach below.  We learn that we will be visiting this little seaside town of Mondela. 

This seaside resort town was what we thought the entire Mediterranean would look like, however, this water and the beach were the most beautiful of our entire trip.

Our trip from Mondelo back into the city of Palermo takes us through various neighborhoods of nice houses and gardens. Many palaces ( fine homes of the  wealthy) are crumbling, but others are well-kept

and some are being restored.

The tour concludes with a drive through of the city center downtown. This is one of the palaces on a hill downtown  and is noted for the combination of Arab and Norman architecture. The interior is lined with mosaics, but we did not visit. ( Jerry had a close call on that one as he thought we were going in when we stopped for several on our bus to use the restroom).Once again, our bus driver performed miracles as the traffic is terrible and the streets are narrow.