Palermo, Sicily

Our next adventure took us to Palermo, Sicily! We wanted to go someplace warm and sunny, but not necessarily a beach. Palermo is the capital of the Italian island of Sicily. Palermo was founded by Phoenician traders in the 8th century BC. It has also been under the control of the Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Germans, French, Spanish, and finally joined the the kingdom of Italy in 1860. Palermo functions as Sicily’s chief port and centre of government.

We had an evening flight into the city and were able to take a bus to our hotel, Hotel Elite. Public transportation around the city, if we weren't walking, was very cheap and easy to figure out.

The staff we very helpful and attentive during our stay. A great Sicilian breakfast was included.
Hotel Elite: http://www.hotelelitepalermo.it/en/

The first day and our last day we explored the city of Palermo on our own. On our second day, we opted to take the bus to Modello, just west of Palermo, for the day (more on that in a later post).

City of Palermo

Port of Palermo:

Teatro Massimo

Quattro Canti

Chiesa Del Gesù

Palermo Cattedrale

Some of the AMAZING food we had in Palermo:

We ate at two excellent restaurants in Palermo, Fud and Osteria Villena, which had just opened ten days prior to our trip. Both places had fantastic food and Osteria Villena had the BEST pasta I have ever had!

One of the odd things we noted was trying to find a currency exchange in Palermo. Basically there was none and we had to go to the post office located at the central train station. It was quite the adventure and I would have never known that was where we needed to go.

Onto Mondello...