Sicilia

The Girls and I in front of Fontana Pretoria

Photo Credit: Mac Witmer

"Excuse me, but did you know it's bad luck to drink red wine on Saturdays?" This was the infamous phrase from our trip to Palermo, Sicily. A couple of weekends ago (gasp, such a delayed blog post, I apologize!), Kate, Mac and I ventured to the diverse and lovely Italian island of Sicilia. Upon our arrival, we were told by the owner of our B&B that Sicily is unlike any other part of Italy. Depending on where you go, you'll encounter various ethnic backgrounds infused with Italian culture. All three of us loved Sicily, and we all deemed it as by far our favorite place to travel. For many reasons. Some of which are: it's diverse, the locals love Americans and give our Italian a chance, the accesibility of the city, and most of all the (cheap and delicious) food!

Quattro Quanti; Fontana Pretoria

As I mentioned, Palermo was quite an easy city to get around, making it great for stumbling upon gorgeous monuments such as the two photographed above. Quattro Quanti was the original city-center of Palermo, and now it still stands with its baroque statues, and proved quite useful as our own city-marker for walking around Palermo.

Fontana Pretoria, was a destination recommended by Mac, who is one of our resident Art History buffs, and currently taking Barroque Art here in Italy. This monument is a controversial baroque fountain that adorned the name, "fountain of shame," when it was first built in the 17th century. The reason for the nickname was because the fountain is comprised primarily of nude statues. The fountain lies in a piazza with two churches on either side of it, which at the time caused quite a stir amongst the Italians. The girls and I enjoyed circling the massive statue, and I was very fortunate to be in company with Kate and Mac whom educated me on each statue.

Pane Con Panelle e Crocche'

With the useful guide to dining in Parlermo, I was super adament about eating local cuisine. Sicily has such a different food culture than other parts of Italy. After doing ample research, I encouraged the girls to explore Sicilian street food with me (they easily obliged). Our first big food stop came while exploring Palermo's three major farmer's markets: Ballaro, Viccurio and Capo. At Ballaro, we went to a stand Katie Parla recommended for Pane con Panelle, which is a fried chickpea sandwich. We added crocche' (fried potato dumplings), and indulged in our inexpensive carb-filled sandwiches. Our lunch was only 2.50 Euro each (!!), and we quite enjoyed this treat. We all agreed it would have been better with some sort of sauce to balance out the amount of starch, but in the end we couldn't complain considering our stomachs were filled with such little cost. 

Farmer's Market Finds

As I mentioned above, Palermo possess three huge farmer's markets: Ballaro, Vucciria, and Capo. All three are evenly spread out around the heart of Palermo, and to my pleasure we visited all three in one day (I appreciate the amount of walking the girl's endured to satisfy my obsession with farmer's markets)! Personally, I enjoyed going to all three. I find exploring local markets to be one of the best ways of seeing a city's culture, people, and varying types of cuisine. 

La Cattedrale

During our long day of seeing all of the farmer's markets, we stumbled upon Polermo's duomo. It was grand, and absolutely lovely. Mac and I were mesmorized by it's unique ceiling. Altogether, we have seen a plethora of churches in Italy, but none of them possess a ceiling that looks like this. The mural on the ceiling is called a "gothic portal," and was painted in the mid-12th century. 

Pasticceria Mazzara: Display; Cannolo; Setteveli

Pasticceria Mazzara was located dangerously close to where we were staying in Palermo. So close, that we came here twice. The first time, Mac and I shared a cannolo and setteveli. Cannoli originated in Sicily, but unfortuantely we were not impressed by this particular treat. Although I found the ricotta based filling to be divine, the outer shell tasted too oily and overpowered the delicious inside.

However, we absolutely loved our Setteveli, which is a seven layer cake. The layers are made up of lots of chocolate  hazelnut, cream, and mouse, all of which meld together in your mouth for an overpowering sweet-delight. This was a great treat to share, seeing as how rich it was, I'm not sure I would have been able to finish it myself. 

Mondello Beach

Day number two was our big beach day. I never knew I would be able to adorn a swimsuit in the month of October, but in Sicily it was quite easy with the 80 degree weather. Mondello Beach is by far one of the prettiest spiaggia I have ever been too. The water was an hombre of teal, and the sand was speckled with gold flakes. Not only was it beyond comfortable to swim in, but Mac and I also had the pleasure of talking to a nice british woman and explaining to her the different parties Obama and Romeny belong to. The only downside of the day was the fact that we forgot to bring towels, and had to drop a larger sum than we would have wanted for a couple of them, but alas this beach was well worth it. 

Pane Ca'Meusa

After our beach day, we ventured back to the heart of Palermo and walked along the port: Porta Carbone in search of yet another Katie Parla suggestion: Pane Ca'Meusa. We ventured to the cafe: Pani ca'Meusa di Porta Carbone to eat this traditional Sicilian sandwich. Essentially, Ca'Meusa is spleen cooked in lard. Yes, it may sound gross to some of you, but in reality it was by far my favorite thing I ate on this trip. This is a MUST try when venturing to Sicily. The meat is so well cooked and marinated, with hints of citrus, that you will not even know what you are eating. It was so satisfying, and filling. I was happy the girls were willing to try it. Kate and I were in a foodie heaven, and even Mac enjoyed it, although she was slightly disturbed by over thinking what she was eating (trust me, just don't think about it, you won't regret it!). 

Brioche con Gelato at Pasticceria Mazzara

Photo Credit: Kate Scow

After the beach, we ventured back to Pasticceria Mazzara for yet another delicious treat: Brioche con Gelato, a.k.a. the original ice cream sandwich! As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm only willing to eat gelato sparingly in Italy, primarily because I was spoiled with working at an artisanal gelato shop back home, and I've consumed so much of it that I rarely crave it. However, not even I can resist trying a pastry filled with gelato. I indulged in pistacchio and coffee, and I can easily say that gelato is far better sandwiched between a pastry versus dehydrated-freezer-burn-cookies!

Reverting back to the beginning of this post, I mentioned that silly phrase about red wine. This was spoken to us by a local Sicilian on our last night in Palermo. Although this phrase is not true, it did end up leading us to having some fun adventures amongst Palermo's nightlife. Sicilians go out even later than Romans (they start to eat around 10....meaning other night activities start even later!), something we were not expecting. Least to say, we ended up oversleeping and missing our flight on Sunday. Although we all agree we did not use our judgement wisely, it was also a great learning experience, and something we laugh about now. Needless to say, we still loved Sicilia, it's not only extremely affordable, but definitely an easy trip to make while in Italy and somewhere everyone should try and visit!