Day 373: Arab-Norman Palermo

Today's world heritage site is a series of buildings in Palermo. Sicily has a long history of foreign conquest - Carthaginians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims from North Africa, Normans, Spanish, and eventually Italians again. But in Palermo, there's a few buildings that show a real mix of cultures. Built by the Normans after their conquest in the late 11th century, but taking their cues from earlier Muslim architecture. Supposedly some quite interesting stuff, so off we went!

First stop was the palace, which is the oldest continually used palace in either Europe or the world, I forget! We couldn't visit the majority of the palace since it was actively being used for parliament sessions, so we had to make do with the spectacular Palatine chapel. This was the royal chapel inside the palace and is largely the same as when it was constructed in the late 11th century by Roger II, the first Norman conqueror of Sicily. Full of incredible mosaics, we were both very impressed!

Next up was the cathedral, an interesting mish-mash of styles. Parts are Byzantine, parts are Arabic, parts are Norman, and then there are later Gothic and Baroque additions too which makes it quite interesting. Not as interesting inside since it was just typical baroque, but we quite enjoyed the exterior and the obvious Arab influences which are very rare in Europe.

One last church to check out which we only saw from the exterior - it was very small and they wanted five euros to look inside! This whole site is typical Sicilian organisation, where each place is ticketed separately and there's no combination ticket or anything. This one they even had a curtain hanging at the doorway, since without it you'd be able to see the entire interior no problems!

It was starting to rain and Schnitzel was at home, so we decided to head back and grab some lunch on the way - more arancini of course! While we were at home it started bucketing down, so we holed up for a few hours. I did a couple of videos while Shandos had a nap!

Eventually by mid-afternoon the rain stopped and we headed back out, this time with Schnitzel in tow. Two more churches with interesting facades and mosaic interiors to finish off our site visit, then a wander around the waterfront. Not quite as interesting as we'd hoped, more of a working port than an interesting waterfront area! Found a decent cafe that had been recommend to us and had a light early dinner there. I had a roll with chicken schnitzel and chips, Shandos had a roll with porchetta (a type of Italian pork), and we shared an involtini, a skewer with fish wrapped in eggplant and deep fried. Fish, eggplant, and fried - about as Sicilian as you can get!Read more