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Tuesday December 4th, 2012: Palermo, Sicily
Bob: We were lucky to awaken just before down as the Pacific Princess steamed into the harbor at Palermo. We rushed up to deck 11, the highest deck on the ship, and took a lot of pictures of the sunrise over the bay. At one point the water just turned to liquid gold and rippled as the sun rose over Mt. Aetna looming in the background. Curiously Mt. Aetna's top was in a small set of clouds, but most of the rest of the sky was clear. |
Monika: One more sight-seeing day before we could rest on an "At Sea" day. Today we were in Palermo on the north-west coast of Sicily. As we steamed into the harbor the sun was just rising and we enjoyed trying to take pictures of the little town with the mountains in background. Off to the distance you even could see mount Aetna. |
Bob: We both used the custom-omelette cook back in the buffet, but our omelettes were underdone and that caused each of us some distress later in the day. I had mapped out what looked like a nice walking loop from the ship south along the waterfront to a parked named "Villa a Mare". That leg of our walk was quite pleasant, with very nice views of the "La Cala" a small yacht basin inhabited by a few fishermen, who were busy repairing their nets after a morning's work, and pleasure craft like small to medium sized sailboats. |
Monika: We had planned to just walk around the city preferably out of the hustle and bustle of the main part. So we walked along the waterfront and walked past fishermen who had just come back and now were mending their nets. Next to it was a yacht harbor. A little farther on was a waterfront park and on the other side an old gate into the city. There was a wide median which was perfect for taking pictures of the waterfront and also of the old city wall. |
Bob: At the end of Villa a Mare we saw the Orto Botanico, or botanical gardens, and we wanted to see that. Unfortunately we went straight ahead toward what looked like a gate, but it was locked up tight. Compounding our initial error, we continued on around the wall perimeter of the gardens rather than simply backtracking to Via Abramo Lincoln where the modern entrance is located. As a result, we walked an extra mile on congested, trash-strewn steets with extremely narrow, rough sidewalks, an unpleasant experience. Once we completed the circuit, found the right entrance, and payed the 5 Euro entrance fee, we enjoyed walking around the gardens for the next two hours. Being December, most of the flower beds were empty, of course, but there was a huge variety of different trees and bushes, all carefully labeled with little blue engraved tags. One whole section had been given over to cycads, those ancient pre-dinosaur plants that still survive in odd ecological niches around the world. I have seen cycads before, but did not realize what a variety there were. |
Monika: We finally reached our goal, the botanical garden. It looked like the entrance was across from the waterfront. So that is where we walked. But that gate was tightly closed. So instead of going back and trying the side street that seemed to go next to the garden, we decided to try to walk around it. That was a bad decision, because it led it out of the way into an old industrial zone. But after finally going around a last corner, we started walking next to the technical university. It turned out the botanical garden was part of the Department of Botany. So we did find the entrance and payed the entrance fee. This was really worthwhile. The garden was big, divided into different sections that concentrated on one type of plant or another. In the middle was a large pool. Around it truly large stands of bamboo. |
Bob: We were impressed by the huge ficus trees, of course, one of which had grown its trunk out so far as to engulf a nearby planter! We also enjoyed various fountains and leafy bowers on the myriad paths cut through the gardens. |
Monika: Other sections had enormous ficus trees and some truly funny looking trees. One I named Grandpa! |
Bob: Surprisingly, some plants were still flowering. One was the poinsettia plant, whose leaves are red and and green and thus make such great Christmas decorations. But other plants were blooming with sprigs of blue or golden flowers. Nice to see flowers blooming in the dead of winter! |
Monika: Another section had a large number of Cycads, a plant that grew when dinosaurs roamed. I certainly did not know that there were that many different species of Cycads. |
Bob: On our way back out we stopped off at a small but stately building with a row of large columns out front. It was beautifully decorated on the inside, complete with statues of famous scientists located in niches in each of the four corners. Judging by the books still assembled in glass-fronted bookcases, the building had functioned as a library of some sort. |
Monika: At the end was a small building that may have been a library, a small square room with statues of philosophers in each corner and an enormously high ceiling. It was truly beautiful. |
Bob: We waited out a brief rain shower in the botanical garden's gift shop and then continued our walk by looping into the center of town to see the Quattro Canti, a plaza faced by palaces on all four sides that reportedly had a fountain representing the four seasons in the center. We found the Quattro Canti, but unfortunately the fountain was surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence with locked gates, so we could just take pictures of all the sculptural figures posed in tableuax to represent each season. That was very pretty but some kind of political protest was going on in front of an official-looking building (lots of flags), and we weren't sure what that was all about. Turning right we walked along Via Marqueda until we crossed Via Bandiera, which was functioning as an outdoor pedestrian mall with street vendors hawking their wares under umbrellas up and down the avenue. Well, you never know what you find at outdoor markets like that, so we turned down Via Bandiera and followed in in the direction of the port. There we circled around until we found a small store that was open (most shops had closed for their mid-day break) and had some beer and wine for sale. With that in hand we proceeded back to the ship, grabbed a couple slices of pizza from the buffet, and enjoyed pizza with Coke (me) and pizza with local beer (Monika--she says it was a nice light ale). |
Monika: The couple of hours we spent wandering the gardens were truly a relaxing, quiet morning. After that we started walking around the city. It contrasted nicely with the noise and dirt of Naples. We enjoyed an outdoor market. But the high point was a beautiful fountain. It was surrounded by four palaces and fun to try to take pictures. But finally we decided to go on. If we had found a nice little restaurant we would have stopped for lunch, but it did not come about. So we walked around to see some of the other parts of the city. We So we started looking for a grocery store to stock up on some beer and wine. It took a while, but we finally found one. That all done, we headed back to the ship for a late lunch, pizza and beer---not half bad! |
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