Island Hopping 2024: Marsala, Capo Lilybeo, Archeologico Museum Lilybeo, Piazza della Repubblica

We stayed fairly close to home today, only driving into Marsala proper.  

We stumbled across a greengrocers outdoor market where we picked up some fresh tomatoes (pomodoro) to include in our dinner tonight.  Now, I am working on my Italian, but I certainly have a little ways to go.  The following is a case in point.  Here you don’t touch the produce itself, you tell the vendor what you want and they pick through it for you.  Our greengrocer, after selecting the pomodoro, told me the price.  I played it back over and over in my head, slowing it down each time, but I never got all the way there.  So, pretending that I understood, I handed her a 20 Euro bill expecting some change.  She was flabbergasted and made it clear that we should be handling this transaction without breaking a twenty.  She stated once again the price and this time I picked up “un euro e … something”.  Ok, this was a good start.  I reached into my pocket and pulled out a 1 Euro coin.  I handed it to her while carefully looking her in the eye.  Clearly more coins were needed.  Taking a wild shot I gave her a 20 Eurocent piece and was preparing to leave in my moment of triumph.  It was not to be. I could now tell that this was not going to end heroically for me.  In a state of unconditional surrender I simply put all my coins in my hand and held them out.  She picked through them taking what she needed.  I saw that she ended up taking another 25 Eurocents.  That’s it,  “un euro e un quarto”!  Quarto!  She said “quarto”!  That’s not so hard.  I can’t wait for the next time.  I’m going to nail it!

Me being the financial wizard

We walked to Cape Lilybeo which is the easternmost point of the Sicilian Mainland.  Events in history associated with this spot are many and includes Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans and then much later Garibaldi himself as he and his Expedition of 1,000 landed in here in the cause of Italian unification.  Aside from a single monument to all of this, they also have a good archeological museum whose clear highlight is a Carthaginian warship that  was recovered from the waters around the cape.

The Sicilian Symbol and Flag

A lot of history has taken place here

A Greek funerary item

Carthaginian vases, rare in that the romans tried to destroy all things Carthaginian

Greek sculpture of Aphrodite. You would think if you are a God you could afford a little more wardrobe

A Carthaginian war ship excavated from the sea

A Carthaginian merchant ship

Before heading home we stopped by the very pleasant central square of Marsala, the Piazza della Republica.  It had plenty of places to eat, and to buy Marsala wine.  

Two church domes in Marsala

One of Marsala's city gates

The street leading to the Piazza della Republica

The city gate

A view from the square

An administrative building in the Piazza

We finished the night with Tagliatelle Pasta, Olives and Wine.  We are really starting to feel Sicilian.  

Our homemade Sicilian feast

Island Hopping 2024: Palermo to Marsala, Thoughts on Palermo

This morning we woke up and began packing as we were leaving the Duchess’ palace today.  We grabbed a quick coffee and my first cannoli since arriving in Italy.  It was so good and I cannot understand why I waited so long.  We walked along the waterfront enjoying the good weather and the Saturday activities of the Palermitani, as the people of Palermo are known.

The breakfast of Champions, Coffee Americano, Cannoli, and a Easter cookie

The City Gate

The Duchess' Palace, built upon the city walls

Top of the City Walls, Duchess' Terrace to the left

The locals enjoying the seafront

Leaving Palermo today after a two-day sojourn is bidding farewell to a city with a rough exterior but an undeniably captivating soul.  Amidst the hustle and bustle of its workaday, dawn to dusk life and then after that the passaggiata, Palermo retains its rough edges and a certain grittiness that only adds to its allure. The city's streets may be a little dirtier, and, its buildings a little more weathered, but each imperfection tells a rich story of history, of resilience, and of character.  Not high on most American’s list of places to visit, it should be.

The duchess had arranged for a ride to the airport for us in a very nice Merdedes, with what Sandy tells me was a very handsome (I think she said gorgeous) chauffeur.  

Sandy says this guy is really handsome, I just don't see it.

At the airport we picked up a rental car.  We had originally reserved an electric car, but Hertz switched us out to a gasoline powered Peugeot.  It is a very nice car and I am not overly disappointed with the switch.

Our drive to Marsala was pretty and uneventful.  The eventful part was finding the AirBnB, but eventually we found it and we got all checked in with plenty of time to see the sun set over the Mediterranean.

The drive to Marsala

Views from the road

Palermo to Marsala

Artichokes in the backyard

Sunset

A nice light dinner, pistachios, olives, left over pizza, bread sticks, wine.  What's not to like?

Island Hopping 2024: Palermo, Cooking with the Duchess, A walk to the Fountain of Shame

This morning we joined the owner of this Palace, the Duchess of Palma for a trip to one of Palermo’s open air markets where we helped purchase the ingredients for a meal that we prepared back in the kitchen of the palace.  Sandy and I were joined by eight more people who had signed up for this experience.  After preparing and cooking a huge meal, we all sat down in her elegant dining room and enjoyed what we had created.  The Duchess is an excellent cook, a diligent teacher, and a captivating story teller.  During the meal and later guiding us through the part of the house in which  she resides, she shared with us the intricacies of inherited titles, the history of the Palace, and the life of Prince Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa the author. 

The Green Grocer

The Duchess' fish monger

The duchess insisting on quality

She gets her herbs from the Palace's terrace

Chopping Basil

Master (the Duchess) and student

Stuffing the sardines

Sardines stuffed and ready to bake for 15 minutes

Sardines before anything was done to them.  Looked good enough to eat just like this.

 The cooks

Our menu consisted of: Panelle, Busiate coi broccoli arriminati, Sarde a beccafico, Insalta sicieana di arance finocchi e olive, and Gelo di mandarino.

The dining room

The Pasta

The Sardines

Mark and I were pretty much the star of the show with our dessert.

In the evening Sandy and I walked from our apartment, through much of the old city, to Quattro Canti (Four Corners ) which is the heart of the city.  Along the way we passed a number of churches, interesting buildings and fountains.  It was a fountain, in fact, that we had set as our destination.  That fountain, the Fontana Pretoria, is known also as the Fountain of Shame.  This, because the many nude statues that are part of the fountain discomforted the sisters of Dominica who were enclaved nearby.  The sisters were so offended by this blatant display of immodesty amongst the statues that they, with hammer and chisel in hand,  knocked off the cause of their discomfort.  Never repaired, so stand the male statues today, broken men, regretting  when they dared present their altogether to the sisters of Dominica.

It is not just that Palermo has so many churches, which it does, it's also that they are all so big!

A little piazza, directly behind me ... a church

Sandy noted that some of the vines on one balcony reach out and become greenery on someone else's balcony

La Passeggiata has begun.  More and more people came out on the street just to walk and talk.

Church

A quiet park about five minutes from our apartment

Garibaldi, the unifier of Italy

The fountain of shame in front of another church

The fountain

Some of the offending statues

Aside from its shameful story, it is a pretty fountain

Leaving the fountain we joined La Passeggiata and on that walk back to the apartment we found a restaurant that served pizza. It was Friday so it had to be pizza.  This had been a good day in Palermo. 

Pizza with olives, artichoke, mushrooms and ham.