Palermo, Sicily, Italy
by Raluca Maier
Palermo is a playful mix of traffic, tiny streets full of motorcycles and cars trying to make their way through the crowds walking up and down, people of all colors, noise, parties in the street, loud music, markets where all sorts of smells mix together, sellers trying to market their products by shouting out loud, like in old times, but also many hidden treasures, like: Palazzo di Normi, Santa Caterica Church, Capuchin Catacombs, Santa Maria Assunta Cathedral, Capella Palatina, Massimo theatre and many others.
Situated in the northwest of the island of Sicily, Palermo has architectural and cultural influences from Northern Africa, Greece, but also Spain and Italy – although in Europe, makes you realize since the first moment you step on the Palermiam ground, that this is not typical Europe at all and not even Italy, the way we knew or imagined it.
It’s the kind of place where the multiculturalism becomes so obvious, that even the names of the streets are written in three different languages: Italian, Hebrew and Arabic.
The city was founded by the Phoenicians, but named by the Ancient Greeks as “Panormus”, which then became “Palermo”, with the basic meaning of a place “always fit for landing in.” This aspect becomes pretty clear once to see all the people coming from Tunis and Northern Africa, for whom Palermo represents a way to make some of their dreams come true and the Tyrrhenian Sea is their only escape to a better world.
These poor people coming from the Third World are making a living nowadays in Palermo, through selling jewelries and souvenirs or washing windows of cars in the city centre – Piazza Centrale.
One of the Tunisian men selling jewelries in this Piazza was actually a very good marketer. He told me that the jewelries were good quality, real silver, because he wouldn’t sell some material that is not good and that would affect his reputation as a seller. He told me, “You, as a client, will tell someone else and I will lose a client. But if the product is good, you will tell someone else about it, to a friend or to your family and I will get more clients.” This seemed practical advice.
What to visit / What to do?
In Palermo, you can enjoy a refined trip, full of culture while walking on the magnificent streets in the city centre and visiting the most important treasures left by the ancestors. At the same time you can have an exotic trip, full of shocking discoveries. It all depends on which side or quarter of Palermo you choose to visit.
If you want to visit the most well-known “tourist places” in the city, I would suggest you don’t miss out on Palazzo dei Normanni, one of the most beautiful Italian palaces and a notable example of Norman architecture. It also houses the famous Cappella Palatina, which you’ve probably seen in many pictures by now. Zisa and Cuba are are magnificent castles, which served as hunting places for the kings of Palermo in the past. Palermo Cathedral is the main church of the city – a blend of different, if not opposed architectural styles. The cathedral can be found on Corso Vittorio Emanuele, corner of Via Matteo Bonello.
Another place of great interest for all tourists is the Capuchin Catacombs, with many mummified corpses in varying degrees of preservation. The main attraction is a little girl, who looks as if she was really still alive.
If you want to enjoy the seaside and get tanned, Cefalu is the best place for that. Palermo is right by the sea, but there aren’t any sandy beach in the city, just the port and heavy rocks. Cefalu is a half an hour away from Palermo and you can get there by bus. It has a beautiful cathedral, tasty restaurants and one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen.
If you want to see the more exotic side of Palermo, visit Ballaro, one of the really poor quarters of the city, with huge markets. Here you can see the way sellers market there products right in the street. Ballaro is also interesting during the night. It’s full of street parties, pubs extending on the street with chairs and tables next to the cars that drive close, scaring some of the tourists. People of all colors and nationalities mix together and dance in the middle of the streets. Drinks are sold in small plastic glasses that cost around €2 to €3. A beer can be €1.50, depending on the brand, and you can find mostly any brand from all over the world. I even noticed Guinness being sold in the market place.
Basic Precautions
You might have heard of Palermo as being a dangerous place to go to, with stories of all the Mafia present around the streets. I’ve walked all alone or with just one other companion in Ballaro, one of the most dangerous quarters in Palermo and never encountered anything scary or frightening.
Most of the Palermiam people and those who came to live in Palermo, are easy-going and friendly. The only thing that I would consider as a danger in Palermo is the traffic. There are many cars, but especially many motorcycles, making their way in the middle of the crowds or in tiny streets so you have to pay special attention when you are walking. The traffic lights don’t matter that much either, so whenever you want to cross the street, you’d better follow an advice one Italian girl gave me: just make sure they notice you out there and if you’re not sure they did, just hold one hand straight, directed to the left or right, depending where the cars are coming from. This will definitely make them stop and wait for you to cross.
Palermo 2-Hour Private Guided Tour
If You Go:
Palermo is usually a nice, hot place to go to, but there are times in the year when the weather is nicest.
Autumn tends to be the wettest time of the year, but you wouldn’t expect a lot of rain though, as Palermo doesn’t experience that much rainfall compared to other parts of Europe. Temperatures usually range between 11°C / 52°F and 17°C / 63°F.
Winter is quite short – between December and February and with temperatures that don’t fall under 10°C / 50°F, which makes Palermo the perfect place for Italians living in other parts of Italy, to escape from the cold winter.
Spring in the best time of the year to visit Palermo, as temperatures range between 10°C / 50°F and 18°C / 65°F.
During May and June, it’s even warm enough to take a bath in the sea and get tanned on the beach.
Summer can be a bit too hot, but it all depends on your preferences – expect high temperatures in July and August, starting at 28°C / 82°F and getting even higher. If you want to enjoy time by the sea, it’s the perfect time.
Have a great escape in Palermo!
For visitor’s information: palermo.com
About the author:
Raluca Maier is originally from Romania, with half-Austrian origins. She enjoys traveling a lot. She studied Journalism and Communication Studies and is an editor of a women’s magazine in Romania – Belva.
All photos are by Raluca Maier.
A German goldsmith, printer and publisher, Johannes Gutenberg invented the mechanical moveable type printing press and this invention started the Printing Revolution. His first major work was the Gutenberg Bible (known as the 42-line Bible). 180 of them were printed on paper and vellum, though only 21 copies survive, two of them may be seen in the museum. There is also a replica of Gutenberg’s printing press, rebuilt according to woodcuts from the 15th and 16th century.
This museum is a must-see for anyone interested in books and printing. The Gutenberg Museum displays two copies of the Bible and Shuelburgh Bible as well as other publications representing the history of the printed word. Here you may see the very earliest typesetting machines and books that were published centuries after the Gutenberg Bible. There is also a small library open to the public that contains a collection of books from the 17th to the 20th centuries.
On March 20th, 1933, Heinrich Himmler and the temporary chief of police in Munich announced that a concentration camp had been built in small town of Dachau in Germany to imprison anyone who “opposed’ the Nazi political party.
The prisoners attended roll call twice a day. During this time they were forced to line up in front of the barracks and stand motionless for an hour as the camp officers would count each prisoner. If anyone had died during the night, the corpse would then be dragged to the roll call area in front of all the other prisoners to be counted. If one of the prisoners had attempted to escape during the night, all of the other inmates were forced to stand at attention for hours on end, regardless of whether the attempt was successful or not. The officers would often torture or punish the prisoner for the others to witness. Sometimes the sick and dying inmates would collapse during roll call, and if any of the fellow inmates dared to help them, they would be punished. Punishment became an hourly occurrence inside Dachau. Prisoners were punished by food withdrawal, mail bans, or at worst, the infamous pole-hanging. Inmates were forced to work throughout the entire day and well into the evening, and were only given a limited amount of time to sleep during the night. They were also forced to put on heavy winter coats while they worked outside during the summer months, or even stand naked while they worked in the cold. If a prisoner was declared “unfit for work,” they would then be transported to the Hartheim Castle, (which was about 17 kilometers away from Linz in Germany); never to be seen or heard from again.
The barracks were used as day rooms and dormitories for the prisoners, and although each barrack was designed to hold 200 prisoners, by the end of World War II in 1945, up to 2,000 prisoners were packed into these small living quarters. (The Jewish prisoners slept in barrack #15 which was separated from the rest of the camp with barbed wire).
Dachau’s crematorium was built in 1940 in order to deal with the increasing number of deaths at the camp, followed by a larger crematorium as well as a gas chamber at the end of 1942. It was inside this gas chamber where the mass murders at Dachau occurred. Fake shower sprouts were installed in the ceiling in order to fool the prisoners into thinking they were going to take a shower. Within a period of 15 to 20 minutes, approximately 150 victims would have been poisoned to death inside the gas chamber. A separate room in the crematorium area known as the “death chamber” used to store the corpses that were brought in from the camp. These corpses were then cremated in one of the stoves, and it is said that each of the stoves could cremate two to three bodies at the same time.
Unfortunately by the time American soldiers discovered Dachau on April 29th, 1945, it was already too late for many of the victims.
Percy and Mary Shelley arrived in the tiny seaside village of San Terenzo in 1819 and rented a villa known as “Casa Magni”, whose whitewashed walls and arched colonnade can be found on the promenade. “A lonely house close by the soft and sublime scenes of the Bay of Lerici”, is how Shelley described the villa in his letters. These lines are inscribed on the walls of the now uninhabited villa, along with “I still inhabit this Divine Bay, reading dramas and sailing and listening to the most enchanting music.”
A sprinkling of brightly coloured houses line medieval streets that wind up to Lerici’s castle, which overlooks the entrance to the Gulf of Poets. The castle is thought to be the inspiration for Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein.” Nowadays the castle contains a museum of palaeontology.
Shelley’s’ ashes were stored in the wine cellar of The British Consul in Rome before being buried in The Protestant Cemetery in Rome, where John Keats was laid to rest just a year before. After Mary Shelley’s death, her husband’s heart was found wrapped in a page of “Adonais”, Shelley’s famous elegy to Keats. Shelley’s heart was eventually buried in St Peter’s Churchyard in Bournemouth, Dorset.
The Vidroule River flows leisurely along its defined banks flanked by nurtured trees and a tended walkway. A pastoral setting so peaceful we were entertained by a solitary otter swimming slowly by, oblivious to the nearness of people and cars. Cafes colonize the walkway with tented outdoor seating offering customers a tree shaded view of the Vidroule and its famous bridge. In its time the bridge was the only crossing of the Vidroule between the Mediterranean and the Cevenne Mountains; hence Sommieres’ ancient importance.
Today the chateau, partially restored and turned to museum remembrances, recalls eras of siege and troubles. Initially constructed between the 10th and 11th centuries at its height it had two towers frowning over river and town of which but one remains. Its first mention in records was in 1041. As its prominence passed it was employed as a prison and eventually lapsed into partial private and public ownership. From its heights town and country spread out in a broad vista.
Sommieres, at 4,500 population, is not the prominent town it was those many years ago which makes it all the more inviting as it’s medieval heart continues to dominate and afford much for the wandering feet of visitors. Narrow streets and lanes sprout off in all directions yet maintain the Roman dominance of grid patterns. In some cases arches over streets have evolved into windowed buildings creating little tunnels to explore and, dotted throughout, are small arches spanning between buildings as some form of support. The narrowed confines open to readily framed vistas for telling photos.
