Palermo, Italy. (January, 2023, Part II).

The weather was near perfect during our first several days in Palermo, about 65° F and partly sunny.  The last week, not so much.  It was rainy, windy, and much cooler, typically around 50° F.  At least there was a break in the rain for several hours each day so we were able to see the city.

We can tolerate any one of rain, wind, and cold, but put two together and it’s miserable.  The major downside to the cooler, wetter weather is not getting out and walking at night as much as we would prefer.  One night we tried to walk to a restaurant in a light rain, without umbrellas.  Halfway there the light rain turned into a deluge.  We were soaked, had to turn around, and ended up eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

Usually I try to avoid the modern and contemporary art museums.  Not my thing.  But we happened to read a description about the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Palermo, specifically that its paintings and sculptures span the early 1800s to the early 1900s. The museum has been collecting works since the late 1800s, so with that in mind I suppose “modern” is a relative term. 

One rainy afternoon we headed over to the museum and paid €10 each to get in.  Paintings and sculptures are spread over three floors, and of course there is a café. Sicilian artists are the focus of the museum.  Most of the paintings are landscapes and portraits; some are religious and historical scenes.  A few works of art from the early 1900s are “modern”, maybe a dozen out of a couple hundred. 

We were there on a Wednesday afternoon and basically had the place to ourselves.  Stephanie liked the Galleria d’Arte Moderna so much that she even considered returning for a second visit.  Even I’m glad we did not skip it.

Pinacoteca Villa Zito is the other art museum that we visited in Palermo.   According to its website the first floor contains antique maps and paintings, while the second floor contains paintings.  Looks great. I’d have probably paid €5 (the ticket price) just to see a large collection of antique maps.

However, when we visited the first floor was taken over entirely by a photography exhibition showcasing street scenes and portraits taken by Lia Pasqualino.  While the photographs were exceptionally well done, we would have preferred seeing the maps and paintings.  Even so, it is a nice gallery and we enjoyed our short visit.

Castello della Zisa intrigued us enough to walk about 40 minutes each way for a visit, in a light rain no less.  The building was constructed in the 1100s by Moorish craftsmen under Norman rule.  Unfortunately it has seen better days.  There is no hiding that the castle has been restored and modified. 

The Museum of Islamic Art is housed at Castello della Zisa, but calling it a museum is a bit of a stretch.  Okay there are some selected pieces of pottery and a few other art exhibits, but there isn’t much and certainly nothing spectacular.

Reviews online tend to gripe about the €6 ticket cost and lack of upkeep of the gardens and pools.  The gardens and pools were closed during our visit – perhaps for winter?  If the grounds were nicely kept no one would complain about the ticket cost.

It says a lot about our visit that the highlight was seeing a rainbow over Palermo from a third-floor window. 

In addition to Cattedrale di Palermo, we visited two other churches in Palermo: Chiesa e Monestaro di Santa Caterina D’Alessandria and Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio.

Chiesa e Monestaro di Santa Caterina D’Alessandria (The Church of Saint Catherine of Alexandria) was built in the late 1500s.  The adjoining monastery, which pre-dates the church, hosted nuns from the early 1300s until 2014.  In 2017 the facility was opened to the public as a museum. 

Tickets are sold to the church, its terraces, and/or the monastery.  We bought all-access tickets for €10 each.  The roof was probably my favorite place in all of Palermo. 

A bakery in the monastery can be visited without purchasing a ticket.  Somehow we managed to leave without splurging for sweets from the bakery. That was probably as mistake as it smelled wonderful.

Directly across Piazza Bellini is Santa Maria dell’Ammiraglio (a/k/a La Martorana), a Norman-era (12^th century) church blending Arab and Norman architecture, along with later Baroque additions and modifications.  The church is best known for its golden Byzantine mosaics, similar to those found in the Cappella Palatina.  As with Castello della Zisa, it is one of the nine Arab-Norman Palermo sites designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We paid €2 each to visit La Martorana, but later realized we could have gotten a small discount.  Numerous churches in Palermo are part of Il Circuito del Sacro (The Route of the Sacred).  A ticket to one operates as a discount to others in the group.

Strangely not all tickets mention the same discounts.  One of our tickets listed discounts to 19 other churches, whereas another listed discounts to only 13 churches.  Check your tickets if you are visiting multiple churches.

During our time in Palermo we strolled through two markets, Mercato di Ballarò and Mercato del Capo.  Of the two, Mercato di Ballarò is supposedly more famous, but we found Mercato del Capo to be much better.

Both exist in narrow streets and are jam packed.  Mercato di Ballarò is much larger, about 450 meters (or 500 yards) long, compared to about 200 meters (or 220 yards) long for Mercato del Capo.

Aside from size, the main difference between them is that Mercato di Ballarò has a more touristy feel to it.  In addition to seafood, meats, fruits, vegetables, and pastries, a whole lot of clothes, shoes, backpacks, and tourist trinkets are found in Mercato di Ballarò.  Mercato del Capo, on the other hand, is almost entirely comprised of food stalls.

If you are a foreigner and don’t speak Italian, be careful when ordering any street food that does not have a set price.  There are abundant stories of folks ordering dishes from market food stalls only to be charged an exorbitant amount at the end. When in doubt, confirm the price on the front end.

It’s one thing to overpay by a few dollars because you are in a tourist zone (which we did), but it’s quite another to get blatantly ripped off in the market because you don’t know better.

Out on the street we stuck to buying arancinis (fried rice balls, in a variety of flavors) and cannolis (fried pastry stuffed with sweetened ricotta cheese). 

As is now customary on our travels, we had a beer tasting contest.  There are only two requirements for a beer to be selected for consideration.  It must be (1) a lager and (2) cheap.  Being in wine country, the options are somewhat limited. Our winner in Palermo is Birrifico Angelo Poretti Tre Luppoli, an Italian pale lager.  It’s fine, but we are not going to look for it in the international beer section back home.  If this changes over the course of our trip, I’ll update the findings.

After two weeks in Palermo, we are off to mainland Italy.

Garrett and Stephanie

The Travel Blog page contains collected links to all of our travel posts.  Check it out if you have not already done so.

Want to subscribe (or unsubscribe) for email notification of new blog posts?  It is only two to three emails a month.  Send your name and email address to slowtravelchronicles@gmail.com, and note subscribe (or unsubscribe) in the subject line.  All email addresses will be kept confidential and not sold to any third-party.  You won’t get any marketing junk or sales pitches from us.