Palermo - the capital of Mafia

We once again started the day with a tasty and sweet breakfast in our hotel. The day was sunny and before eleven o'clock we were already driving towards Palermo along the Messina - Palermo highway. We had to pay 5.50 euros for the highway and I guess it was worth it. The drive took about two hours and just before Palermo we visited a beautiful villa in Bagheria.

The two volcanos, visible from our hotel, were having a smoke break.

Piraino - the small town where we reside

A beautiful villa on the way to Palermo

Some flower on the yard of the villa

A lizard was hiding in a palm tree.

Finding a place for parking is always a problem in Sicily and Palermo was no exception. The fact that we didn't know what all the parking related signs meant didn't make things any easier. Eventually we just left our car to a parking place and didn't really know if we were supposed to pay or not. We didn't.

Perhaps the main square of Palermo? :)

One of the huge churches one can admire in Palermo

And another one

The day was the warmest so far and I was walking in a t-shirt. The city seemed to be dirty but some of the buildings and squares are really nice. We wanted to use the toilet in McDonald's but there were guards inside! Apparently we should have bought something to use their restroom facilities. First time for everything. We walked for roughly two hours and saw a couple of nice Catholic churches and the main post office. Once again we had small troubles finding the place where we left our car but we were happy to see that we didn't have to pay anything when we finally found the place :).

One more big church!

An art picture

Another small problem in Sicily is eating. It feels like every time you are hungry they're having siesta. And you guessed it, it happened in Palermo too. We gave up pretty fast and just ate in a McDonald's. The food sucks but at least you know the price and they have toilets. Wi-Fi didn't work though.

The honeymooners

Tourist information centers were scarce in Sicily so we again didn't have a map and weren't sure if we had seen the biggest sights in Palermo or not. We were driving around with hopes to find something to see. On the way we bought some gasoline for 1.4 euros per liter, a typical price at that time. After filling up we saw a brown sign showing a way to some church. We thought that it might be something beautiful and started following the route. In no time we found ourselves on what must have been the narrowest road so far. It was more than once when we had to stop the car and reverse for a while to let other cars pass. In a while we drove up a big hill and found the church. The church itself wasn't worth the drive but at least we had a great view over the city and some more driving experience too :)!

Palermo landscape

After seeing the church we wanted to find a way out of the city and head back to our hotel. By accident we found signs leading to the center and decided to give it another try. And I'm glad we did because soon we saw a couple of really beautiful and big buildings right next to us. One of them was the famous cathedral of Palermo and the other one the palace of Palermo. We left our car to have a short walk around the area and took a lot of photos.

The famous cathedral of Palermo in the night

We considered ourselves really lucky to have seen the amazing buildings and headed back to Piraino and our hotel. We didn't recognise any Mafiosos but otherwise our visit to Palermo was a success!