Days 1 and 2: Touring the capital city of Palermo

Our third Italian adventure has begun, this time in the region of Sicily. I have to admit I don't know much about Sicily beyond what I learned watching the Godfather movies hundreds of times and of course the show White Lotus. But we are excited to explore the island which is about the size of Massachusetts. Unlike the northern regions of mainland Italy, fast trains are not exactly a thing here so we decided to rent a car and drive around the entire island starting from the Sicilian capital city of Palermo. We chose to fly into Palermo instead of the more popular city of Catania simply because Mt. Etna had been erupting recently causing cancellations and delays of aircraft going into Catania. So to avoid that possibility, we started our journey in Palermo.

Unfortunately, our trip started with a slight hiccup.....my luggage was lost by the airline. So there I am, starting my two week vacation with no clothes. After filling out the lost luggage report and hoping for a quick reunion with my clothing, we ordered an Uber Black shuttle to take us into the city. I decided to give the airline a day to find my luggage before we set off for a shopping spree.

After checking into our hotel, we headed out to find lunch. Immediately we could tell Palermo wasn't exactly the prettiest of Italian cities as there was quite a bit of graffiti, garbage in the streets, and run down buildings. It wasn't lost on us that Sicily is the 3rd poorest region of Italy due to a variety of possible reasons including the economic impact of the mafia and lack of investment by the Italian government. But the question is which came first? Did bad government create the poverty which lead to the rise of the mafia or was it the mafia control that discouraged the government from investing thus increasing poverty? Either way, the people living on the island have suffered and their capital city isn't in the best of shape.

Nonetheless, there is beauty to be found everywhere in this world and the one area we always find it is in the food. We navigated through narrow alleys looking for our first Sicilian meal. It was amazing to find so many restaurants hidden along these random narrow corridors and yet find them packed with hungry patrons. We eventually found a place Christina researched and we were not disappointed. Sicilian cuisine incorporates alot of seafood and so we absolutely leaned into trying their specialties including swordfish and sardines. They are also very big on fried melanzane which is eggplant. As for a bit of digestivo, I threw back a glass of amaretto. MmmMmm

We were pretty tired from our travels so we called it a day and hoped to wake up on time for our early morning walking tour around the city.

At 8am we were up and about and I still had zero update regarding my luggage. I took a quick shower and threw back on my airplane clothes and out the door we went in search of breakfast. The hotel was supposed to offer a free breakfast but after searching around for it to no avail, we gave up and just headed out to find a pastry shop. With a couple of espressos and sweet bread in our bellies, we met up with our tour guide by the Chiesa di Sant'Ignazio. We meandered the busy streets to see the famous Teatro Massimo opera house, the Palermo market, and the Fountain of Shame among other sites. She even taught us that the stuffed fried ball of rice is known as Arancini (male plural form) to everyone outside of Palermo but the word is Arancine (female plural form) in Palermo. Apparently it is a controversial topic in Sicily that goes way back. Here is a fun article talking about the drama behind the delicious street food. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20190415-the-gender-fight-behind-sicilys-most-iconic-snack

There was also an interesting stop by the Fontana Pretoria, the Fountain of Shame, located in in the middle of Piazza Pretoria. It's a beautiful white marble fountain with many naked statues located next to a church. Surprisingly, the name wasn't given to the fountain because of this (although the nuns in the abbey next door probably felt that was reason enough for the name) but because in the 16th century the city decided to spend all its money to buy the fountain from a starving artist in Florence and knocked down multiple homes to put it in the middle of town. So of course the people were angry the government wasted all the money and destroyed their homes. Hence the shame.

After the tour, we were starving and hot. So we found a highly rated "hole in the wall" restaurant. Admittedly, it wasn't the greatest meal we had but the locals seemed to love it as there was not a tourist in site. The orange Fanta was delicious though! They actually use real orange juice here.

Next, we hit the stores in search of clothes for me. There was still no word from Swiss Air about my luggage and we were heading out to a less populous part of the island where finding clothes would be challenging. And so on our shopping spree we went. Luckily, I was able to find most of everything I needed in a few stores including a new piece of luggage to pack it all.

Exhausted from our incredibly efficient and quick shopping adventure, we enjoyed one last drink and delicious meal before picking up our rental car the next day for our drive to San Vito lo Capo, a popular beach destination for locals.