A mix of character and grandeur
Half Punic, half Phoenician, half Roman, half Arab... The city of Palermo is an intense mix. Spectacular in its enclave, in a bay at the foot of Mount Pellegrino of Sicily , seems imagined by a child poet, as that Garibaldian said when approaching her from the sea. Traces of Arab domination are mixed with those of the Norman and Baroque styles in such a way that a building from the front has nothing to do with the same building seen from behind. this acceptance, this pragmatic incorporation of styles , has always seemed to me to define his kind character. Beauty, decadence and conservation. Renaissance palaces next to shacks, 194 churches with vaulted ceilings on top of what were once mosques... All the buildings witnessed countless invaders.
His story is one of constant chaos. With these reflections one afternoon I was sunbathing on a deckchair by the pool of the Grand Hotel Villa Igiea, next to which are the roofless ruins of a Greek temple. And while I contemplated my surroundings Like someone who sits in a plastic chair on a sidewalk to watch, I noticed that someone had drilled holes in its old columns to install an electrical outlet for the minibar. Momentarily I felt very indignant. This was the last straw! There I was, a pissed off Englishwoman with a National Trust pin on his jacket (British conservation organization).
But as I was half lying there, a cloud passed over me and time thickened, with that addictive sicilian intensity , as forceful as the giant pyres that are lit in the surrounding mountains. And so, suddenly, I lost all trace of outrage.
View of Palermo from Mount Pellegrino
STONE
In Palermo things happen slowly. Only once did I notice an abrupt change . That's when all of a sudden, four years ago, everyone started smoking roll-your-own cigarettes instead of state-subsidized cigarettes, which became ruinously expensive overnight. But even this change seemed immediately eternal . In any case, rolling tobacco fits better with Palermo: the process of taking the tobacco out of its case and the paper of the booklet moistened by the heat of August. In the sunny months, the ups and downs of the city are more visible. In the streets and squares of the historic center that are still affected after the bombings of 1943 , some debris resembles pillows whose entrails have been thrown out leaving small trails.
This impression even reaches inside the famous Vucciria market, with its colorful stalls selling everything from multicolored springs to pig's trotters. In the completely collapsed Piazza Garraffello you will find a giant graffiti of a beating heart painted on the wall of what was once a fancy bank . Further on, on Via Roma, in a stretch of myrtle hedges located just outside the door of the Vincenzo Bellini Conservatory of Music , students sit on 17th-century stone blocks, clutching their oboe cases, gossiping to each other, whispering in the ear.
Where I am now? I'm lost . I pick up the map. There is a charming simplicity in how the city has been laid out since ancient times: two perpendicular avenues divide everything into four parts. But each of my three maps say something different , especially when the streets condense in the southeast, towards the tough old neighborhood Albergheria , in the alleys where the boys, almost all of them in their teens, walk their boxer dogs and ride their scooters. Here once I saw a man, exhausted by the intense heat (barely appeased by the glory of the shade of an acacia tree), walk his horse without a harness to a dark Moorish courtyard shrouded in shadows.
Cuticchio Puppet Theater
In Palermo horses are everywhere. During the early hours of the morning they hold illegal competitions on lost highways and those who survive gently lead tourists on comfortable trap trips to and from the Capuchin catacombs, where the embalmed corpses of the city's monks and prelates hang from hooks like smashed puppets. One of those trips that should have taken 30 minutes , through the worn grandeur of the streets leading out of Quattro Canti – a large square situated at the junction of the two main avenues lined with elaborate balconies and cornices – becomes an hour's walk due to street construction Y at the slow pace of pedestrians.
During our tour we witnessed a strong argument between our driver and some tourists, with a high level of aggressiveness that ended up involving the police; the agents they got off their motorcycles and made exaggerated gestures in all directions . We thought for a moment that they would come to blows but, as usual here, the fight fizzled out to nothing. It was overlooked, as it happens in this city, always under the watchful eye of the stone saints and the altars to the Virgin that can be found even in the knife shop of the Piazza Caracciolo , where the Virgin looks up in ecstasy, surrounded by a halo of candles and knives of all kinds. Even so, she will answer our pleas.
Pina restaurant dish
BLOOD
My friends Luca and Domenico tell me that every time they pass an abandoned building in the city they feel a lot of anger . For the English it is nothing more than an absurd and romantic nod to the past, but for a Sicilian it is the expression of moral decadence. “To the Mafia, which still controls much of the construction industry here, he is concerned only with the easy money made by building new buildings , and not preserving the old. They would raze the entire city to rubble if they could," an enraged Domenico tells me, "and build a skyscraper like the ones they already have in what It was a fragrant forest of olive and lemon trees next to the ancient walls ”. Mafia and corruption. It is the secret litany of every dialectical exchange.
In the afternoon, in front of Piazza della Kalsa , a few minutes from the marina where the prince in El Gatopardo rode his car in the moonlight, I stop to watch the sunset: at 4:00 p.m. the swallows arrive swooping down, at 5:00 p.m. a man begins to fry cockles in a cauldron, at 6:00 p.m. Signore Ciccio starts making his chickpea pancakes that he sells for 10 cents – people line up to take whole bags on their vespas –, at 7:00 p.m. he puts the fresh swordfish on ice and braziers are lit outside the restaurants, ready for the first diners... From the open doors of a nearby church comes the sound of choir rehearsals and a waiter tells me it's father Mario's choir , a priest – even a mystic – much appreciated for his ability to heal by laying on of hands. Apparently, he just got out of jail where he was sent for refusing to tell the police what had been revealed to him in a confession by some mobsters. "He has changed," says the waiter solemnly; “ now he is sad ”.
A lamppost near the cathedral
Impressed by the seriousness of the Sicilian in contrast to the bustle of the Neapolitans, I once asked Luca if he thought Sicilians were pessimists. “Oh no!” he said, shaking his head carefully; “ our wisdom lies in expecting the worst ”. Thinking about it, you can feel this intensity throughout the city, which emanates from the Christian tradition, and which can be seen in the figure of a knocked-kneed Christ in Santa Maria della Gancia, on Via Alloro . Or in a couple of chapels further on, in the expression of the bust of Christ from 1485 that is preserved in a glass case. It seems that this passion has permeated the character of the town. Even the food here has a more visceral flavor and color.
The offal sandwiches or a plate of caponata (aubergine stew) have a deep purple color... Wild blackberries at the Ballarò market, fresh tuna, crushed figs and dark rust-colored honey like henna. Once, during a flight into the city in a blustery February, the woman across from me prayed the rosary from takeoff to landing with only a break to buy a scratch card from the stewardess, nodding when she asked. purchase turned out to be a fiasco. In short, Domenico says that it is as if in Naples “everyone knew that hell could break loose but They will trust that they will be fine, while in Palermo, they pray that hell does not break loose from the beginning ”.
View of the Lido di Mondello
FROZEN
In spring I drove 15 minutes to the fishing village of Sferracavallo. There I ate spaghetti with sea urchin as I watched the multi-colored fishing boats bobbing near the jagged rocks, and I watched so intently that when I finally got up I was zigzagging.
A little closer to the city is the resort of Mondello where wealthy Palermitans came in the 1920s and built posh weekend villas, and where, from June to October, throngs of vacationing teenagers cling to beach shacks and they buy ice cream at the Latte Pa ice cream parlor facing the sea.
14-year-old girls come out of the water with disheveled hair. Not all of them are slender (in the south of Italy, the body and being thin are not given that importance), but they are all arrogant . The boys behave more shyly, thinking about how to approach them. In Sicily, says Luca, girls are a nightmare . “My God”, he sighs he, “It is necessary to bow down to them, pleas, you have to declare eternal love for them, they believe they are angels, it is very laborious to conquer them ”. I comfort him with a nougat and caramel ice cream. “Better than the one in Naples?” Lucas challenges me. I nod. "Let them keep their pizzas," he murmurs.
In Palermo they love ice cream. Many even claim that it was invented here. In the betting houses the inveterate gamblers stop in front of the television screens eyes screwed up with anxiety and frantically licking a cone.
Ice cream in Piazza San Domenico
Cafe after cafe you can find entrepreneurs making deals while enjoying their sundaes with whipped cream. In Ilardo, a few minutes from Piazza Santo Spirito or in La Preferita, mothers and daughters eat, leaning against the wall, brioches filled with mint ice cream with chocolate cookies with no more concern than not wasting a single drop of ice cream. After having a binge, the warm glow of Palermo stone hits my eyes again.
The city was known as the granary of ancient Rome . Wheat was grown in vast expanses outside the walls, turning the entire area into a yellow spectacle. Not much remains of that image, but take a walk to Piazza Magione –with its characteristic garden– and the church of the same name –whose annexed 12th-century cloister is full of flowers–, it will suddenly make you feel like you are in some remote Persian village . And then, you can continue towards the always crowded Via Garibaldi, through the workshops and garages of the cabinetmakers, the old palaces and the huge stores full of stacked panamas and trilbies (they love hats here) .
Piazza Verdi in Palermo
Only in Palermo and in Rajasthan I have seen stores entirely dedicated to luggage wheel repair , for example, or repairing the esparto soles of canvas shoes. Alone here the smell of roasted coffee mixes with that of the oleanders that flood the markets , and the soccer players in the squares and streets open up to let you pass. Only here do the housewives haggle sarcastically from the fifth floor with the fishmonger as they lower their baskets with a rope.
Ultimately, this It is the best city in the world to get lost , the best place to wander aimlessly. Sooner or later you will find a main street or you will recognize the man who sells dried persimmons or the museum on duty. This is a city you will quickly become familiar with, and with an intimacy so inexplicably alive it's as if you've been here before . Every step and every turn is already a memory etched in memory.
* This article is published in Condé Nast Traveler's February 81 issue. This number is available in its digital version for iPad in the iTunes AppStore, and in the digital version for PC, Mac, Smartphone and iPad in the Zinio virtual kiosk (on Smartphone devices: Android, PC/Mac, Win8, WebOS, Rims, iPad). Also, you can find us on Google Play Newsstand.
*** You may also be interested...**
- Have breakfast in Sicily
- Catania, quiet hedonism at the foot of the volcano
- 10 reasons to fall in love with Sicily
- Sicily Travel Guide
- Sicily in 10 villages
- The most delicious pizzas in Italy
- Five things to drink in Sicily (and they are not cassata)
fish in the port
Palermo, you always have to come back