One of the stops on our last Mediterranean cruise we took was in The capital city of Sicily, Palermo. We weren’t in port very long but we had just enough time to explore the city and see what it was all about. Honeybun was almost 4 years old and Sugarplum was 21 months.
We arrived mid-morning and docked very close to the city so we were able to walk off the ship and right into town. The ship provided us with a map and I immediately knew I wanted to see the theatre. The Teatro Massimo is the third largest theatre in Europe (Paris Opera and the main theatre in Vienna being the two biggest) and was where the famous last scenes of The Godfather Part III were filmed.
The interior of the theatre can be visited by guided tour only, and only offers English tours a few times a day. So after we bought our tickets, we had a while until our tour time and we headed off to a nearby cafe for a snack where we enjoyed a coffee and sweet treat.
We returned to the theatre for our tour and I found it fascinating. Being a dancer, I’m familiar with the inner workings of a theatre and love seeing the most famous ones (and maybe day dreaming about being up on the stage…) the theatre was magnificent and
We then headed to lunch, stopping at a little sidewalk cafe where we enjoyed some pizza and local wine while we watched the city go about its day. We then did a little poking around the shops near the port before re-boarding the ship mid-afternoon.
We didn’t have a lot of time in Palermo, but we did have plenty of time to take in the charm, history, culture, architecture, local flair (and terribly inconsiderate drivers) during our short visit.
(And one of the highlights of our entire trip: after getting back the ship, as we rode the glass elevator up to our floor, I stopped in and demanded everyone get out and go outside to look in the water. I had spotted a large turtle near the ship! We spent a few minutes watching the turtle and talking about it before hubby and I realized it was not moving. Ooops, we slowly moved the girls’ attention away from the turtle and returned to our room…)
