Escursion 5: Palermo & Agrigento

One of my traveling goals while I'm here in Italy is to see as many parts of Italy as possible - so when a girl in my program found cheap tickets to fly to Sicilia (pronounced Seecheelia) for a three day weekend, I couldn't pass up the opportunity. The plan was to fly into Palermo - hang out in Palermo on Friday and Sunday, and on Saturday take a day trip to Agrigento.

I went with 4 other people in the BCSP program. From left to right, me, Kelsey, Lauren, Kelsey, and Holly.

Our flight was on Friday afternoon. It wasn't the best flight, but for only 50 euros, I wasn't expecting anything else. We arrived in Palermo around 3 and checked into our hostel. The guy who ran the hostel gave us the low down on Palermo - all the tourist attractions, some recommended restaurants, and seven Sicilian/Palermitanian foods that we had to try while we were in Sicily.

I love trying all the different kinds of foods from all over Italy, but it always feels weird taking pictures of the food I'm eating. Consequently, most of these pictures are stolen of google images. I chose the pictures that look closest to what I actually ate.

These seven foods were:
1) Arancia Rossa = blood oranges.

We bought these by the dozen at the open markets at unbelievably cheap prices. 10 euro cent / orange. Easily the best oranges I've ever had.


2) Arancini = fried rice balls with different fillings.

The name comes from arancie (oranges) beacuse they have the same size, shape, and a similar color. The guy at the hostel warned us that these were pesante (heavy), but because Italians say macaroni and cheese is pesante, I didn't really think anything of it. When I finally had an aranicino in my hand, though, I believed him completely. I didn't think I would ever find somthing heavier than a chipoltle burrito in Italy. BUT, they were absolutely delicious and extrememly cheap. We all got a different type and shared - so I tried ones with prosciuto e mozzarella, salsicia, carne e pizzoli (steak and peas), and spinace e riccota. I spent just over 1 euro and I wasn't hungry again for almost 24 hours.


3) Pizza sfincione palermitana = pizza with onions and anchovies

Sounds absolutely terrible, so it took some courage to try. Definitely not my first choice, but suprisingly good.


4) Bucatini con sarde alla Palermitana = thick, spaghetti-like hollow pasta with sardines and capers.

Another dish that took some courage to order, but my bravery was rewarded generously this time. One of my favorite pasta dished I've eaten in Italy. Highly reccomended even if you don't like sardines (like me). First a pictures of bucatini pasta, and the second of bucatini con sarde.



5) Cannoli alla Siciliana - everyone knows what a cannoli is, right?

I ate at least 8 of these in 3 days.

6) Cassata Siciliana - really sugary dessert made with ricotta

The only thing that I didn't like. It was SUPER sugary and didn't really have much flavor or texture. I'd choose cannoli or sette veli everytime over this dessert everytime.

7) Sette Veli = chocolate cake with 7 kinds of chocolate (invented in Palermo)

YES. This was one of the last things I ate in Sicily. Probably a good thing because I wouldn't have eaten anything else if I tried it first. BEST CAKE EVER.


Accents!
It was really tough to understand the Sicilian accent, but I really enjoyed listening to it because I felt like I was in the Godfather. The accent was EXACTLY the same. Once at the mercato all'aperta (open air market), we talked to a guy that was Don Corleone's twin. Same face, same hair, same hat, same voice. When the man stopped at the fruit and vegitable stand, I felt like some New York gansters were going to pull up and shoot him in the back seven times. I actually turned around to check...

Cool Things we saw in Palermo

Chiesa di Jesu'
A church with some of the most famous mosaics in the world. The entire ceiling was covered in mosaics made with chips of gold and silver. Tiny, but undeniably stunning.



Teatro Massimo / Teatro Politeama
The main theaters of Palermo. Big, simple, and both really cool. Below is the Teatro Massimo and under it some pictures of typical Palermitanian Streets.



Mercato all'aperta
Without a doubt one of the coolest things that I've seen/done in Italy. The open-air market is one of the last surviving tradizional food markets in Italy. What makes it so cool is that not only is all the food fresh and delicious, the atmosphere is unbelievable. The smells are powerful - fruits, fish, cheese, vegitables, and spices. I tried lots of really delicious things and also a few things - fried vegitables and lamb kebab's amung them, but also things that I will neever eat again (testa di pecora, see below). There are TONS of people of all ages and the vendors shout at you to buy their products. They yell out deals, sales, what makes their product unique, insults, just make noise, ecc, ecc. Anything to gain attention. Here are a bunch of pictures I took while walking through the market. Some guys that were butchering fish and washing the blood down the street with buckets of water invited us to take a picture with them. The other pictures are us walking through the market, and the last is of testa di pecora. Can you figure out what it is?





I stopped at one of the calmest spots in the mercato to take a video. I hope nobody has any problems viewing it!

Can you see what it is?? (see bottom for answer...)

On Saturday, we took a day trip to Agrigento to see some of the most well preserved Greek ruins in the world. The bus ride there was awesome because we drove from the north coast to the south coast. We got to see the Sicilian Countryside and all the little cities between Palermo and Agrigento.










When we arrived we had a picnic. Food in Sicily is so cheap that all 5 of us ate WAY too much and only spent 5 euro! Us after our picnic on some Ancient Greek Ruins.

Afterwords, we went went to all the templi in the Valle dei Templi (Valley of the Temples). It was awesome to see buildings constructed well over 2000 years ago, especially because they were so well preserved. You were allowed to climb through a bunch of the ruins that weren't so well preserved, which was also a ton of fun. We took a lot of pictures at the Valley of the Temples. Here are some of them:














IF your about to eat or just ate, STOP HERE and read the rest of the post some other time or never.

Testa di Pecora (pictured above and below) is a boiled lamb's head that is cut in half. I bought it because at first glance it looked like a pork chop, but it was easily the most disgusting thing I have ever tried in my life. (To the left was my last cannoli of the trip - used to get the taste of lamb brain out of my mouth).


We almost went to the catacombs of Palermo as well, until we saw some of the morbid pictures. We decided that taking a walk along the beach and finding somewhere good to eat would be a much better decision than seeing these real dead bodies:


Case in point. I hope you enjoyed the post!

CIAO!!