Day 1 Afternoon, Sept 26, 2024 Monreale Cathedral

Afternoon, still day 1 of our tour.  Our itinerary reads: This afternoon head to Monreale Cathedral, ascending on foot to see its majestic Byzantine mosaics.  Then, it's our choice!  Explore the cathedral's cloisters, taking in their serene atmosphere of the monastic complex - OR - ascend the southern tower to the panoramic terraces for a bird's -eye view over Palermo.

Once we were done with the guided tour, we could explore on our own.  This cathedral is considered to be the best example of Norman Architecture.  The building began in 1174 by William II of Sicily.

It was elevated to the Archdiocese of Monreale in 1183, and completed in 1267.  Since 2015 it's been part of the Arab-Norman Palermo and the Catholic churches of Cefalu' and Monreale UNESCO World Heritage Site.

There were two Sarcophagi, but I wasn't able to get a picture of the 2nd one. Both William the I and William II of Sicily are there.

It was quite colorful, with incredible detail everywhere you looked.

I opted for walking around the cloisters, while hubby climbed the southern tower.

Time to meet up with our traveling companions and board the coach to return to the hotel.  We were told no sleeveless tops, no shorts above the knee.  Our estimated time to arrive back at the hotel was 5:30 where we would have dinner on our own.

I tried to load the video hubby took of the birds eye view, but couldn't get blogger and the video to play nice.  Sorry folks.  Just a picture instead.

Day 2, Palermo, Sept 26-2024 Capo Market

Day 2 of the tour, Breakfast started at 7 am and we were to meet at 9:30 in the lobby to begin our walking tour:

Our itinerary reads: Begin your adventure tasting your way through Palermo's lively markets on a walking tour unveiling the city's historical center and introducing you to traditional  Sicilian street food, which layers Oriental and Norman influences with local produce such as wild fennel, olives, and spices. 

Our group of 24 was divided into 2 groups, one group of 12 and one of 10.  A couple of people opted out.  The 2nd group was lead by Francesca above, who was very cute and animated.  She was full of information and shared with us her childhood memories of the area, the food and the vendors.  Group 2 was a bit delayed departing due to some technical issues with Vbox.  Standing with Angelica is Vera and Joe from Australia.  Visiting Sicily was especially important to them as they both have family in Sicily.

We started with The Capo Market, which was very colorful and busy with lots of fresh vegetables, and fish and other goodies.

Here they were squeezing fresh juice

I don't know what dishes we were looking at, but everything looked colorful and fresh.

We sampled as we walked the market, stopping at several vendors as we listen to Francesca tell us about the history and food.  Wasn't able to get pictures of those stops, as our hands were busy eating.  Here we actually sat down.  On the left front to back is Don, Mike, Kathy, Joe, Vera.  Across from Vera is Steve, Susan, Lucille, I was beside Lucille and then Ernie.

She's showing us wild Fennel

Olives, that aren't edible as they've not been processed.

We had a meat pie of sorts, a potato...sorta like a pancake, grapes and other fruit.

Continuing our walk through the market you can see the variety of foods...naturally pasta.  I'm in the black on the right with a straw hat.

Taking pictures as we walk, you can see how crowded the market was, though we were told it's not as crowded as it used to be.

Lots of yummy goodies

Check out the huge cannoli!

While this isn't the best of pictures, you can see the longevity of this families business in the market.  Francesca remembered being here with her grandmother who knew the original owner.  It's still the same family.

By this time we had entered the 2nd market, but I don't remember the name.  There are 4 historical markets in Palermo: Capo, Ballaro, LaVucciria, and Borgo Vecchio.  We had 2 ladies in the group, Anne and Lynn who are quilters.  They really wanted to stop and see some of the fabric shops we passed, but we kept walking.  

A street alter.  They were beginning to prepare for a holiday festival and parade.

We stopped in a little bar to have some desert wine.  I'm not generally a fan of sweet/desert wine; but it was rather tasty and refreshing.

Walking on you see vendors grilling

You pass more goodies

Then we stopped for quick desert break and had delicious cannoli's.

Time to board our coach to return to the hotel.  Hubby liked that our coach was scarlet and gray, Ohio States colors, lol.  We'll have time to freshen up (30 ish minutes), then re-board the coach to make our way to Monreale Cathedral.

Since this post is heavy with pictures, the afternoon at Monreale Cathedral will be the next post.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Palermo On Our Own, Before The Tour

We arrived back at our hotel to officially check in, after our exploring and having lunch; as our room was now ready.

The outside of our hotel, Best Western Ai Cavalieri Via Sant'Oliva 8, Palermo.

We did a bit of unpacking, and took a mini nap.  You'll notice 2 twin beds.  This is quite common in Europe, and we found out in our other travels it's best to request 2 twins for your room, otherwise you're likely to have only a double bed.  They don't tend to do Queen or King beds in many hotels in Europe, particularly not at the more historic hotels which is often where you stay when touring.

We had nice little sitting area with a little half wall that separated the bedroom from the sitting area, and the door you see is to the bathroom.

Small shower, but adequate.

You can see the half wall I mentioned.  We have a desk area with the TV (that was never turned on!!).  A nice wardrobe.  The room was small, but well appointed and we had coffee service there in the room on the desk with a small fridge in the cabinet.

This is the breakfast room, which was quite pretty.  There was a meeting room just off to the right which is where we met our tour companions and tour guide.

The common areas in the hotel were quite pretty; though I never really noticed anyone sitting and enjoying them.  Would have been nice to have a drink in one of these areas in the evening to chat with our fellow travelers, but the hotel did not have a bar.......I thought that odd.  AND the breakfast room is used for just that, no other meals were served in the hotel.

After our rest, we headed out for a night of exploring and a lite dinner; but that will be the next posts since this post already has 10 photo's.

See you in a few days for next installment of our Sicily tour.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit.

Heading to Sicily!

Heading to Sicily.  The map shows you were we're going, where we're visiting, as well as where we're spending the night.  We fly into Palermo and out of Catania.

We took this 14 day tour through Collette using our Marriott Vacation Club Points (18,000 points).  I've always wanted to go to Sicily.  Can't really even point to a reason why, just because.  lol

Step 1 an overnight stay in the Marriott Cincinnati Airport, where we used some Bonvoy Points for the night and got an upgrade to a suite with 2 bathrooms and living room.  That was very helpful as we could get ready easily for our departure the following day.  We flew out of Cincinnati, instead of home airport, Columbus because the ticket price was better.  This hotel was much nicer than many close to the airports we've stayed in in the past.

Here I am just about to have desert after lunch in the Polaris Lounge in Chicago (Cincinnati to Chicago was our first leg of the trip).  Oh, and some bubbly with desert.  Doesn't the desert look pretty and yummy?

Hubby took my picture just after I settled in my business class seat

And I took his picture as he was getting ready to climb into his cubby.  Every plane we've been on has a slightly different arrangement for business class seats.  Our working parts were in the middle so we were both on the isle, making conversation a bit of a challenge.  We've managed to have seats in the middle with working parts closer to the isle before, which is preferrable, but ....you never know how it's going to work out.  We flew from Chicago to Rome, and even with getting some sleep after dinner on board, we're pretty tired when we arrived 9 hours later in Rome.  Hustled a bit in Rome to make our connections from there to Palermo.

The Collette driver picked us up at the airport (nice small airport in Palermo), and drove us to our hotel about 45 ish minutes away.  The airport is not actually in the city of Palermo.

All totaled, 21 hours of travel.  It was too early to check into our room at the hotel, so they kept our luggage and we ventured out for a walk and lunch.

Lots of choices in small cafe's there in Palermo.  The cutting board is shaped like Sicily!  Lunch was excellent, but we couldn't finish it all.

Yes, hubby looks a bit tired.  My first Aperol Spritz of the trip.

Fresh Mozzarella and a basket of bread in addition to our wonderful charcuterie board.

The name of our cafe'.

Please check back in as we settle into our hotel for 3 nights.  The tour was there for 2 nights, but we arrived a day early so spent 3 nights there.

PLEASE leave me a comment when you come visit, so I know you were here. Your visits and comments are very special to me. AND remember, leave your name and url and not your profile link. Name and url takes me right to your blog post so I can reciprocate the visit and comments.