Italia Day 4 - Palermo

When I'm on holidays, I love to get up early & go for a run, before the town really gets going. I have seen some really great sights doing this. In Palermo, after the 'penis on the loose' incident, I didn't feel particularly safe doing this, so C got up & we went for a quick walk around town instead.

This little shuttered window in a bridge near the Cathedral intrigued me.

An example of the most common architecture in Palermo - these flats were in pretty good condition, but many were not.

Me hanging on one corner of the Quattro Canti.

The main thing on our agenda was to see inside the Cathedral. The building is enormous - I couldn't fit the whole expanse into one photo.

The inside of this church has been described as 'disappointingly basic', which I don't agree with. I can understand where the author was coming from, both in terms of the grandeur of the outside, and the extravagant decoration inside many Italian churches. However, I loved the understated elegance.

This is one side of Porte Nuova - the New Gate. Built in the 16th century. Just a baby.

Unfortunately I've been suffering from a bad cold/flu which hasn't gotten better since I arrived in Italy. So I had to cut my afternoon short & head back to the hostel for a rest. On the way back I took a shortcut around the back of the cathedral & found this stunning decoration - more evidence of the many different cultural influences Palermo has seen.

A typical Palermo scene - there is a fair bit of rubbish littering the streets of the old city. It's not too bad mostly, but there were a couple of spots around the markets that had piles of rotting meat that I found quite confronting.

Palermo is a city of extremes - chock full of ancient monuments, all the buzz of a modern Italian city & evidence of poverty everywhere you look in the dilapidated buildings & rubbish lined streets of the poorer areas. It was an intense introduction to Sicily but I highly recommend it. It's completely authentic & the pace of life will get your blood pumping.