Hilary's Adventure: Palermo

Kyle and I have spent the last 5 days in Palermo chilling out and sightseeing. We were only going to stay 3 nights but over the New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day everything was closed so we decided to stay 2 extra nights to be able to see Palermo properly.

We arrived on the 31^st after our train journey from Edinburgh. That was a long day! We got off the train from Edinburgh at 6am with little sleep to then kill time before getting ourselves out to Gatwick for our flight to Palermo, Sicily at 2pm. We killed time in London at a café having breakfast and coffee to try and stay awake. If we fell asleep somewhere we were likely to sleep the rest of the day away and miss our flight. We left the café at about 9am to head over to Gatwick to catch our plane. We arrived in plenty of time and checked in our luggage. We then had about 3 hours to kill before we even had to think about boarding the plane. We found some comfy chairs to sit down and fight off sleep. We managed to fight off the sleep to board the plane to promptly fall asleep.

The plane journey was uneventful because we were both asleep. All I remember is that the flight was closer to 2 hours instead of 2.5 hours because we had good tail winds. We arrived in Palermo at about 5pm to collect our bags and try and find out how to get into town. As it turned out it was quite easy, we just got on a bus that went to the main train station and our hotel was not far from there. It was about a 45min journey with a few stops. I spent the whole time thinking our bags will be taken off so other people will be able to get to theirs and ours will not be put back on. As it turns out it was all fine and our bags were still on the bus waiting to be collected.

Our hotel wasn’t really a hotel. It was more like an up market hostel that wanted to be a hotel but just couldn’t quite make it. It was clean and in a good location and that’s all we really needed. Also what else do you expect to get for €25 a night for a private double room in Europe?

Once we arrived and dumped our bags and things we headed out to find dinner and what there was to do for New Year’s Eve. Fireworks and crackers are legal to buy in Italy so every Tom Dick and Mario were setting off penny bangers and fireworks right near you as you walked down the street. It was quite disconcerting.

We found a nice place to have some dinner. The lady running it didn’t speak a word of English but we managed to get by and order some dinner. After dinner we headed out to find what was happening for New Year’s Eve other then fireworks set off by 4 year olds. As we walked we just followed the music till we found where it was coming from. It turns out that it was coming from a stage set up in one of the Piazza off the main street. They had a live band and singer singing all the (apparently) famous Italian songs. We hung around till mid night then went home to bed. The fireworks were just getting a big out of control as people were drinking more.

The next day we got up late and went walking the streets to see what we could find to eat and see. As it turns out nothing much because it was a public holiday and everything closes. Finally managed to find some dinner then we went back to the room to chill as there wasn’t much else to do.

The next couple of days went in that fashion. We just couldn’t seem to get up and move before everything shut down for their afternoon nap. We did find some awesome looking churches that we could go wondering round in.

The Sicilians don’t seem to look after their buildings until it is too late. Most of the buildings are falling down without anyone seeming to care. They still put high end stores in them like Prada but the buildings are still falling down. It just seems to be all a bit weird.

By this time our 5 days were up we had had enough of Palermo and were ready to move on. The people were nice but the city its self just had an off feel that we just couldn’t shake. Weather it was winter and everyone was down because it was cold who knows but I don’t think we will be going back in a hurry.