Sicilia!

Sicily was a very fun trip that taught Tiff and I a lot about traveling.

We made the mistake when booking the trip in advance of having our flight be out of Rome.  Rome is pretty far from Florence and people prefer to either fly out of Florence, or Pisa which is about 45 minutes away.  We walked to the train station at 5 am all dressed up for our arrival in Sicily. Tiff and I both had the misconception that the train ride would be this extravagant mode of transportation with people doting on us with champagne and olives.  Once in Rome, we had to take another train from the train station to Rome's airport.  We arrived to the airport with about 45 minutes to get through security.  We both ended up having trouble with our boarding passes (me printing the wrong one, and tiff forgetting hers) so we were super stressed.  However, with some sprints through the airport as well as some fake tears at the ticket counter we still made it onto the plane.  Once in Palermo we took a bus into the city and were amazed by the landscape.

The outskirts of the city look like the hollywood hills with houses sitting on the cliffs surrounding the city.  The actual city of Palermo has beautiful architecture with much nicer buildings than both Rome and Florence.  The architecture reminded us of a mix of Beverly hills and Sarasota style buildings with palm trees lining the streets.  The whole city was not this nice, but it was definitely a different side of Italy.

We first went to the Teatro Massimo which is the third largest opera house in Europe and located in Piazza Verdi.  It is most notably recognized as the steps which Mary dies on in the ending of the Godfather III.

Teatro Massimo

Godfather III scene

For the rest of the day we shopped, ate some fabulous canolis, and realized we were there during the off season.  We were literally the only Americans in Sicily and it was obvious.  People acted very surprised when they would hear us speak, and would give us looks like what are you doing here? It wasn't warm enough for the beach, which is when Sicily becomes loaded with tourists, but we were still able to enjoy the views of the Mediterranean Sea.  We were also able to really practice our Italian since so few people spoke English.  When we would say were from Washington DC it didn't seem to register with many people as to where that was.  For the most part, people were super welcoming and glad to have us there.


We walked to the coast line hoping to get a boat tour of Mondella beach and the close by islands.  The "boat tours" would of been just Tiffany and I and some random fisherman so we decided to continue walking to the other side of the pier with all of the commercial boats and cruise ships.  When approaching this pier there were numerous police officers out front guarding a certain gate.  Tiff asked the officer if we could walk down there and he turned around with a machine gun in his hand.  He couldn't speak english and we decided to skip the pier and just head back to our hostel scared shitless.  We had no clue why they were there, and figured they were just working with the mafia on an incoming shipment.


My mom's grandparents were born 2 hours outside of Palermo in Racalmuto, Sicily.  I asked many people about the town and most said it was small and they knew nothing about it.  Since I wasn't able to get any information on the town, I got the second best thing and brought back a bottle of the region's most famous wine for my mom which is Nero D'Avola.

 Palermo's main marina

View of Cape Zafferano from Palermo Marina

 Palermo from our terminal