analogue walk in Palermo

i've never been to a city that resembled Palermo. anyway, as people usually approach new things by comparing them to what's already known, i immediately thought the city has the same decadent charm and distracted elegance that Lisbon and Venice somehow have. but it's also pompous and proud as Rome can be. the open air markets are loud and picturesque, the traffic on the roads is a nightmare. they reminded me of Morocco.

we had an handful of hours in town, one day before picking up the lambretta and leave for our road trip across the island, and another one at the end, to properly say goodbye to Sicily. enough to collect impressions {and pictures} but not to see and know Palermo's urban jungle.

what we saw and loved was a kaleidoscopic mix that only a place with a long multilayered history can have.
no need to be an architecture expert to enjoy and decipher the most different architectural features, one beside {or inside} the other. Norman buildings stand next to typical Muslims elements or Byantines decors, in a patchy, but fluid, harmony.

acting as a counterpart to the beautiful architecture, a microcosm of details makes Palermo play the distractedly graceful or the cheekily flashy part, alternatively. they can be saint and madonnas, painted or carved, all kinds of greenery and wonderful succulents, or horses wearing cute hats.

the top pleasures list of our staying in Palermo includes with no doubts the street food feast. from the greasy delicious panini to arancini to panelle. to remain in the food-related area, another top-listed activity is a walk across one of the open air markets. the pictures in this post were taken at Ballarò market.

the best location we saw in Palermo was the Cappella Palatina, which, alone, is definitely worth the trip. the place was too dark to take pictures with my 100 iso film roll, but i shared this shot on instagram to praise a small part of those utterly beautiful decorations.

last but not least, we loved the visit to Stanze al Genio, the Maiolica museum, which hosts about 2600 hand painted italian tiles, documenting a 400 years long tradition. the smart guys who manage the museum launched a crowfunding campaign a few weeks ago, in order to double the museum collection to 5000 maioliche. all informations on how to adopt your own tile and support the campaign here.

to read more about our road trip across Sicilia:
* Sicilia on the road, 10 days and 2 wheels

* what makes the difference is people
* Sicilian color palette
* from Sicilia with love: travel souvenirs
* 7 reasons we will visit Sicily again