…Palermo, the ancient seate of the Sicilian kings:
stiled the Happie, for the delightful situation; now
adorned with goodly buildings, and frequented by students.
-George Sandys, A Relation of a Journey, 1610

No words can express the hazy brilliancy which hung
around the coasts, as on a most beautiful noon we neared
Palermo. He who has once seen it will never forget it.
-Goethe, Italian Travels, 1787

Arrival

By the time I got to Palermo I’d lost track of how long I’d gone without sleep, wedged into economy class from Santa Barbara to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Rome and, finally, Rome to Sicily. Then, due to traffic, it took another hour to get to the hotel. I checked in at the Excelsior, which in Latin means ‘ever upwards’, apparently referring to my credit card bill. It gave me a sense of security I was at the time quite willing to pay for. Years ago, in my early twenties, I’d slept on a park bench in Palermo’s Villa Giulia gardens, my backpack tied to a light post with a sock. I’d awoken in the night and seen the world’s largest rat, the size of a small terrier, ambling along the path. Whatever nostalgia I had for my youthful travels, and I had plenty, the backpacker’s rustic accommodation wasn’t part of it. I was relieved to have clean sheets, a full bathroom, and a room free of gigantic rodents.

I deposited my luggage and set out for a stroll. I couldn’t sleep anyway, fatigued though I was. I went to the English Gardens beside the hotel and sat below the bronze equestrian statue of Garibaldi who, from a certain angle, looked like a tour guide on horseback exclaiming, “Look at that palm tree!” He was ignored by a group of teenagers even though in 1860 he was the Liberator of Sicily with his red-shirted Expedition of the Thousand. His arm is raised in an imperial gesture to ideals that have little relevance for sexting and tweeting kids. Why should they ponder this valiant figure and the battle for the city that he led over a hundred and fifty years ago, or care that, in the same year, at the age of fifty three, he married an eighteen-year-old girl, Guiseppina Raimondi, who, after the solemn nuptials, informed him she was pregnant with another man’s child? No wonder he wanted to go out and conquer something. At the foot of the statue a bronze lion—metaphor for Garibaldi—chomps on a heavy chain, breaking the bonds of Bourbon tyranny; the French monarchal kind, not the Kentucky, liquid kind that the gentleman shuffling by me seems happily shackled by. The bench beneath Garibaldi’s verdigris effigy was a pleasant spot to make a quick reconnoiter of my map. It was 6:00 pm and I needed to stay awake until 9:00, when I’d allow myself a hot bath before collapsing in sheets with a thread count that would’ve made Nero blush, hopefully waking well-rested with my physiological clock reset for a day of exploring.

It took me a block or two to get my land legs back, but I was soon striding cheerfully up the Via della Libertà and feeling it rightly named indeed. The street is adorned with grand buildings from the nineteenth century. There used to be more of them, but in the 1960s several were demolished, lining the pockets of corrupt politicians and mafiosi who benefitted from lucrative government subsidies for new construction. Many of Palermo’s noble edifices were replaced with generic concrete high rises. Several of the old palaces had been irreparably damaged in the Allied bombing in 1943 and that, too, was a contributing factor in the decline of much of the city’s architecture. In 1990 Palermo was the only Italian city that hadn’t had the buildings of its historical center rebuilt. In fact, there are still signs of the war damage today. Despite the down-on-its-luck bits, however, this noble city, almost three-thousand years old and having witnessed a procession of occupiers—Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, French, Spanish, and, some Sicilians might say, Italians—shows real signs of vitality. Palermo has had many names through history: Ziz (‘The Flower’) to the Phoenicians—who founded the city in the 8th century BCE—Panormus (‘Port for All’) to the ancient Greeks; Balarm or Balarmuh to the Arabs, who also referred to it as Madinat Siqilliyya (‘The City of Sicily’), or, simply, al-Madina, (‘The City’); and the nickname La Felice (‘The Happy’). In the Middle Ages Palermo was referred to as ‘The City of the Threefold Speech’, since public notices were posted in Greek, Arabic, and Latin; meanwhile, the Normans used French as their court language. Sometimes Hebrew was added to documents, as many Jews also resided in the city. Through all these ages Palermo has been a fascinating place. Little wonder, given its strategic position in the middle of the Mediterranean.

The midday siesta, the pisolino, was over and shops were opening for the second time in the day. The streets were loud and lively. Palermitan teens zipped about in candy-colored scooters, jousting with dawdling pedestrians and obliging even black-clad widows with walking sticks to step lively. Breezes from the Tyrrhenian Sea had ventilated the piazzas for the evening passeggiata, when young and old congregate in the city’s squares and walk along the main thoroughfare, closed to cars every evening for the purpose. The tree-lined Via della Libertà, which continues south as the Via Ruggiero Settimo, extends further still into the Via Maqueda, making a wonderful two-kilometer long pedestrian zone. I walked slowly, happily, with nowhere in particular to go. Shop windows glowed optimistically, exhibiting a rainbow of chic wares, not quite Milan but putting on a respectable show. Grocery stores offered bargains in splashy reds; a Nigerian man sold sunglasses off a sheet on the sidewalk, creating an impromptu storefront for knock-off Ray Bans at five Euros apiece (bargained down from fifty!); a pharmacy proclaimed its sanitary ambience with bright lights and its medicinal vocation with green crosses. Persuaded, I entered and bought some toothpaste from a young man in a brilliant white lab coat with the name ‘Enrico’ stitched in red cursive over his heart. Was he aware that in 1241 Frederick II of Sicily was the first ruler to legally segregate the practices of apothecary and physician? Enrico was so good looking, a veritable Palermitan Valentino, I imagined the women of the city traversing the town to see him. Doors would swing open, squeaking: “Enrico!” followed by a revealing lean over the counter and whispers punctuated by the sensuous cooing that in all of nature only flirting Italian women can produce. Enrico blushes, trying to maintain a starched professionalism. I imagine some men did the same: “Enrico!”, with deeper voices. To which summons Enrico responded I know not. Toothpaste was all I required at the moment.

Having quickly and cheaply satisfied that particularly North American urge to purchase something to formalize one’s arrival in a foreign country, with a newfound sense of belonging I clutched the pharmacy bag—touched by Enrico!—and stepped up my pace, though never wandering far from the reassuring axis of the Via Libertà, along which lay a direct path back to the commodious sanctuary of the Excelsior. I indulged in the traveler’s forgivable voyeurism as lights came on in flats, observing people going about their daily business: watching television; doing dishes; and from their balconies gathering up the colorful banners of laundry dried crisp by midday’s desiccating zephyrs. Whilst witnessing such cozy scenes of daily life I found myself winding down quickly, and as the streetlamps began to glow and the passeggiata of the Palermitani began I dragged myself back to the hotel, sad to miss the spectacle but much anticipating that expansive, and expensive, bed.