Sicily Day 1: Arrival in Palermo

Touching down in Palermo after a long 18-hr flight was like walking through a door into summer, with soft blue skies, fluffy clouds, and warm sunshine.

The small airport is right on the beach, and the 20 minute drive from the airport to the heart of the city was amazingly scenic, with rugged peaks plunging into clear blue-green Mediterranean waters, and flat-roofed, white-plastered houses surrounded by palm trees and masses of brilliantly-blooming bougainvillea.

The driver of our airport shuttle van assured us that today being Sunday, it was a very light traffic day (and indeed it was) but people still drove with a wanton disregard of any traffic laws. Driving the wrong way up the street because the traffic in your lane wasn't going fast enough? No problem! Driving halfway across a busy intersection--against the light--then coming to a dead halt in the middle, stopping traffic in all directions? No problem!

And that's not even counting the hair-raising exploits of the Vespa drivers...

I only caught a few glimpses of the city, but it looks very nice. Lots of parks and tree-lined streets and buildings with Baroque wrought-iron balconies.

Our hotel is amazing...located down a cobbled side-street in the oldest part of the city, it's the palatial former Stock Exchange, built in 1862 and renovated in high style, with parquet floors scattered with Persian and Turkish rugs, and a gorgeous interior courtyard in a neo-Classical style, with a marble pavement, a colonnade, a fountain, and lots of wicker tables and chairs for hanging out. In fact, when we arrived, there were lots of people drinking wine and chatting.

I was starving, so wandered down to the hotel restaurant (the dining room opens out into the courtyard) and had a light lunch that consisted of a fabulous seafood cocktail of tiny shrimp and lobster and a big prawn served on a bed of fresh greens, and a soup advertised as an ancient Sicilian recipe, made with pureed broad beans (which were bright green and tasted somewhat like fresh English peas) with flavored with fresh fennel and other herbs and a drizzle of olive oil. It was refreshing and delicious.

One of my fellow tour members joined me for the meal, and we had a pleasant chat--she's a retired architect with an interest in Greek and Roman buildings.

After a nice cold shower and a nap, I met up with the rest of the tour group downstairs in the courtyard. We had champagne cocktails made with fresh-squeezed orange juice, then headed into one of the hotel conference rooms for a short lecture covering the highlights of the history of Sicily. Professor Bianchi, aka "call me Bob," is quite a character, very energetic and friendly, with pierced ears and a long, snowy beard.

Dinner was delicious. We began with local wine and bread baked with sesame seeds, followed by a a course of deep-fried seafood (calamari, shrimp, and a sardine fillet), with a second course of seafood pasta in a white wine and garlic sauce, finishing an ethereally-light frozen dessert of strawberries in cream, that didn't so much melt as evaporate on the tongue.

I staggered off to bed as soon as the dinner ended (it was nearly 10PM by that point) and fell into bed.