Southern Italy 2008 Part 2

Day 3: We had an early morning tour of Palermo & Monreale. Jane was our fabulous tour guide for the entire trip. She said that we were the only group she's had in all her years of touring, who enjoyed sleeping in! She's an expat from England who came to Italy for love. She's mostly Italian in nature now, except for her British penchant for early mornings and punctuality.

We toured Palermo which I must say that I always thought of as a layover city. This is the first time that we spent more than one night in Palermo. We really enjoyed our visit. The restaurants were excellent and shopping was fun although the euro was a killer! You must spend 2-3 nights there to experience the city.

Our guide, Roberta, took us around Palermo & Monreale. She was into religious history, but thankfully had a wonderful sense of humor. Monreale is a small mountain community about 15 or 20 minutes outside of Palermo.

Later we drove along the Tyrrhenian Sea to spent several hours in Cefalu. A few of us found a little café in which we had Panini sandwiches and wine. Afterwards we walked across the way for a refreshing gelato, mine being pistachio and nocciola.

Coming back into Palermo we got caught in a major traffic snag. Of all things, it was largely due to the fact that of the 8 lanes on hand----only 2 could be used!!! The rest were filled with cars parked all over the place while they ran in for their midday gelato---and it wasn't even that hot out!!!

On our return to Palermo, Fabio had prepared some antipasti for us to enjoy before dinner. He introduced us to caperberries. These are not to be confused with capers. Caperberries were not as tart and pickled as capers. We had dinner with more antipasto-- oh, my! Of course we were hooked on a Sicilian white, thanks to Fabio, bianco d'alcamo. One really interesting dish we had was pumpkin chunks that were marinated in roasted garlic and vinegar. By day 2, we were ceci fritter addicts. I know when we go home that chickpea flour will go on the grocery list. I hope we can find caperberries somewhere.