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Spent the whole of Thursday in transit from Barcelona to Palermo flying via Roma. All went well with meeting Erika at the airport in Palermo and we were picked up by Margherita and Salvo who were our Airbnb hosts. They took us to the apartment that we had rented for the night - right in the middle of the Arab Norman quarter. This really gave us an insight into life in downtown Palermo - a little basic but fine for the night as it was clean and comfortable. Margherita described the neighbours as "friendly" - this translated to an old fellow in his shorts spending a lot of his time on his little balcony (which was diretly opposite ours across a very narrow street) trying to engage us in conversation.
She found a nearby restaurant for us to go to where we had an enormous meal - 2 entrees of pasta (gluten free) which was marvellous, then I had ordered what I thought was veal but turned out to be a rather thick chewy piece of raw beef which I couldn't eat. Erika chose Swordfish rolls which she couldn't eat either so that was a little disappointing but we enjoyed the wine and atmosphere.
Friday morning we were so close to the market that we had to make a visit - well it was a very rustic market but lots of nice fruit and veges but also with a big flea market component. Prices are a lot less here.
We then wandered around and found the Royal Palace which we bought tickets to enter and it was very worthwhile. They had a hidden cafe on the top floor so we had a coffee and enjoyed the view.
We continued our walk through the main street of the old town zig zagging into little streets to try to see as much as possible of the numerous churches and other historic buildings which are everywhere. We ended up at the port and sat at a nice waterside rustic cafe made out of a container and had a juice.
Then it was time to find our way home, pack up and take the train to collect our hire car and head out of town to Cefalu for the night. I think that Margherita was very disappointed that we did not stay on longer in Palermo as they are very proud of their city but we felt that we had seen and done sufficient to get a feel of the town so it is onwards for us.
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