It was my own fault. I didn’t read the description on booking.com carefully enough. I consulted Google Maps, looked at the street view and tried to calculate the distance to the bus terminal. But, somehow, I missed the all-important words, tucked away in the middle of the list of features: “upper floors accessible by stairs only”. It turned out, all the Peonia Boutique Apartments were on the top floor and the ceiling heights in this historic building meant that there were two flights of stairs per floor. At least we only had to lug our suitcases up there once. But by the end of our week in Palermo, our thighs and butts were considerably more toned than when we arrived.
The walking helped, too. Our accommodation was just 600 metres from the Quattro Canti, an intersection held to be the centre of the old town. It felt further. The crush along the pedestrianised Via Maqueda meant constant dodging around people staring at their phones, pondering the merits of the pavement restaurants or darting sideways into souvenir shops.
Happily, our apartment was on the fringe of the main tourist area, rather than in the thick of it. At our door (down those 63 stairs) in the Piazza Olivella were several bars and restaurants, the archeological museum, and the Church of Saint Ignatius, built in the 16th century. Here, as the night drew in, young boys kicked a football around and pre-teen girls huddled together, glued to their mobile phones. One evening, as we sipped an aperitivo, wedding guests were arriving at the church – a procession of frocked-up ladies and impeccably groomed men. The groom was a military man, and later we watched the newlyweds emerge beneath the crossed swords of the guard of honour. It was a taste of local life on an island geared for tourism.
Most nights, we ate in the piazza. It was steps rather than a hike away. The Ristorante Pizzeria Ruvolo had a menu that extended way beyond pizza, and a friendly waitress who welcomed us back on our return visits. Seafood was a feature. I tried spaghetti with sardines, a typical Sicilian dish, but the mushy sauce wasn’t what I expected. Fred’s seafood pizza came topped with so much shellfish, including giant scampi in their shells, that he was up to his elbows in fishy bits. Here we discovered Catarratto, a Sicilian white wine that, according to Google, is “energetic with aromas of citrus, grapefruit, salinity, and orange blossoms.”
At the other end of the piazza, the menu at La Traviata had a touch of Tunisia, supplementing the ever-present pizza and pasta with couscous and brik, a deep-fried pastry stuffed with potato, egg, tuna, and capers. The Sicilian mixed antipasto was also mostly deep-fried, consisting of a smaller version of the brik, panelle (chickpea fritters) and chips, with a couple of small tomato-topped crostini on the side. A feature at La Traviata was a large TV screen. The football match between Genoa and Juventus (the Turin team) generated enthusiastic and noisy support from many of the patrons. Juventus won, 3-0, to the approval of the crowd.
We had been warned by many posts on Reddit that Palermo was dirty, garbage-strewn and dangerous. It wasn’t, at least in “our” neighbourhood. A block away, the Via Roma was like any big-city main street, with department stores, imposing apartment buildings and the even more imposing Chiesa di San Domenico. Opposite the church was an all-important facility: an automatic laundry. We loaded up the machines, pushed the right buttons, and adjourned to the bar in the piazza for coffee and cornetti. Around the corner was the Mercato Vucciria. What it lacked in fresh produce it made up for in stalls selling luridly printed table linen, streetside eateries specialising in crespelle and spleen sandwiches (pass) and meat and fishmongers who would grill your choice on the spot.
On the terrace atop the Rinascente department store, with views to the sea and to the mountains that surround the city, we discovered a new cocktail: the Averna Mule. Averna is our occasional after-dinner tipple, and the herby digestivo is made in Sicily. The mule is a combination of Averna, lemon juice, vodka and ginger beer and appeared to be unknown anywhere beyond the (Averna-sponsored) Rinascente bar.
Another elevated experience was Le Terrazze del Sole, atop the B & B Hotel near the Quattro Canti. Caponata, squid ink pasta, grilled octopus with purple potatoes and chicken mille feuille were a step up from the fare at Ruvolo. But the fanciest, and most expensive, meal we had in Palermo was at the Osteria Ballarò where beautifully plated dishes included morsels of tuna five different ways, tartare of veal, a fine frittura di mare and an exquisite tagliata of beef. The ambience of the 15th-century palazzo and the attentive but unobtrusive service made that dinner a culinary high point.
We did more than just eat, of course. From the famed Quattro Canti intersection, with its four heavily ornamented baroque facades, it wasn’t far to the ornate Palermo cathedral (where construction began in 1184) and from there to the Palazzo dei Normanni (dating back to the 9th century) and its dazzling Palatine Chapel. Created for King Roger II in the 12th century, the chapel glows with gold from its Byzantine mosaics and its intricately ornamented wooden ceiling.
We took a train to Cefalù, a seaside town popular for its sandy beach and overlooked by a formidable and fortified peak with ancient structures dating back to the 4th century B.C. As we waited at the Palermo Railway Station, McDonald’s beckoned and Fred consumed “the best Macca’s burger ever”. On our final day in Palermo, in the 14th century Palazzo Chiaromonte Steri, a guide showed us drawings and poignant writings left by prisoners of the Spanish Inquisition.
Despite social media warnings, in Palermo we didn’t find streets full of rubbish. And no-one picked our pockets. But as we bumped our suitcases down the 63 stairs, I wasn’t sorry that we wouldn’t be climbing them again. We still had to wrangle the cases onto the local bus on our way to the coach terminal. And it was an uncomfortable 3.5-hour journey over the mountains to Siracusa. But our next apartment had a feature we were very thankful for: a lift.