The routage proved good when we left Arbatax on Sardegna at 2:30 in the morning as it took us 36 hours to reach Palermo with balanced winds. I have been using Weather4D for routage, and despite it is difficult to find its way through the screens and options, one finally get a meaningful routage. In our case, it worked perfect, and this is particularly useful when you have 200 miles to go with unstable weather situation.
Street food market. Tempted?
Palermo and Sicily did not disappoint us. The maze of streets in the centre, the market districts where you can find everything, the influences of the various periods on the architecture, everything is made to surprise and captivate.
I am sure that you have noted the octopuses on the picture above. I don't want to get into clichés, but after all, isn't the octopus the symbol of the mafia? And this symbol comes straight from Sicily. The Sicilian mafia was nicknamed the "piovra". The mafia owes its nickname to its huge tentacular network, which, like the octopus, regenerates if one of its tentacles is cut. And octopuses were just everywhere in the market.
Some photos below to accompany us in our wanderings in the heart of Palermo.
Small chapel in the Via Scaparelli
Fabric market area
Carlo V in piazza Bologni
Carlo V, or Charles V, is omnipresent in Palermo. He was Holy Roman Emperor from 1519 to 1556. He was the first emperor to rule an empire "on which the sun never sets". As he did not set a capital for his empire, Charles V travelled to all his territories during his reign. He visited Sicily in 1535 and spent a month in Palermo before crossing the mountains to Messina. No wonder he is so revered in Palermo!
Colonna dell'Immacolata and church San Domenico, Piazza San Domenico
Via Maqueda
Facade with another statue of Carlo V in via Maqueda
In the marina, we could see a small fishing boat selling its Tuna catch of the day. While sailing along the Sicilian coast, we came across a lot of buoys that were obviously used for fishing, often in depths of more than a thousand metres. These could be longlines that are collected after a few hours. They did not sell the tuna in retail, so we could not taste it!
Fishing boats sailing tuna in the harbour
We had a lot of rain on our first night in Palermo marina. And we were surprised to see the next morning how much sand had been deposited on our boat as well as on the surrounding area. This is the effect of the Sirocco, a hot and humid south wind, known to carry large quantities of sand from the Sahara across the Mediterranean, where it is loaded with moisture, before falling as rain in Sicily and southern Italy. These rains are called blood rains here because of the reddish colour of the sand deposited everywhere. These sirocco episodes can be violent and last several days. This is exactly what happened to us in Palermo. But we did not experience any bad moods as sirocco is responsible for in local beliefs.
This required a long needed extensive "kärchering" of the boat in any case.
After first Sirocco night! I agree with you the "!blood rain" is a bit victim of "anemia"
You can see on the map below the circulation of the sirocco, from Libya to south of Italy and Sicily. The intensity of the shade represents the amount of sand dust in the air.
Dust forecast for Sicilia
Cela m'a rappelle tellement de bons souvenirs ...et ne vous étonnez pas de voie ste rita un peu partout et bien sûr dans les églises car elle est vénérée la bas..et fêtée à l automne .les rues sont couvertes de roses ....
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