Palermo

Another long while has passed since this post and the last one. Truthfully, I realised I don't have any photos from Palermo (must have forgotten to take them from the Photographer (aka Heeyul/Oppa) before leaving), and I also do not have much memories or stories from Palermo. It was a relatively boring place, we did not research or plan very well. Hence I have procrastinated once again, as I do...

The day we left Palermo was the worst day for our travel troupe, perhaps this is another reason why I have such horrid memories of Naples. To start off we were caught on the bus without a bus ticket. Karma is such a bum, why is it the only time we try to ninga a bus ride there is a policeman checking tickets?? We had an interesting communication dynamic going with Gabby speaking Spanish and the policeman speaking Italian (One sentence I did understand was him saying, "You must speak Italian in Italy!"). In between the discord of speaking in two distinct language (although I hear they are somewhat similar, and as our experience attests, some minimal understanding can be reached), the three of us were fined for the price of one. In that regard, I suppose we were relatively lucky.

However, Heeyul spent the last of his cash on the fine. At the train station I asked him what he was going to do, reaching into his pocket to retrieve his wallet, he said, "I just go withdlaw prom my cledit card... Where's my cledit card?" Me: "*loud and exaggerated gasp* Oh my god! Gabby has it!!" And where was Gabby? On the train speeding towards Rome. 

Things also did not go well for Gabby. Her flight from Rome to Copenhagen was delayed, causing her to miss her flight to Aarhus. She had to shell out ~1000dkk for another ticket. That's more than the cost of a train ticket!

Palermo was off with a bad start.

I had heard many times Italians don't speak English. That doesn't really apply in most of the major cities tourists are likely to frequent, but Sicily was not a tourist hotspot with the human resources required to cater for us non-Italian speaking visitors. My little Italian pocket book was put to great use in Sicily, for even the little things like deciphering menus when the waiter's second language is Deutsch.

Other than that, not much to say about Palermo, it's a quaint little town. We could have taken a day trip but our trip was severely research-lacking. I wanted to go to Mt Etna, but ended up settling for the nearby town of Monreale which is situated on a hill overlooking Palermo. It also has a 'famous' and quite pretty church/cathedral. I don't understand why these insignificant towns have the most amazing churches!