Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense

Continuing to take advantage of our apartment kitchen we had another leisurely cooked breakfast before walking down to the very pretty public gardens which adjoin the city as these are just a short walk from Trinacria. The Sicilian's seem very fond of Moreton Bay Figs, which Edward would have been familiar with, and in many areas there are large plantations of Australian eucalypts which appear to be used as windbreaks or slope stabilisers. These probably came after Edward's visit because he doesn't mention spotting any.

Palermo Botanic Gardens, with what I've just realised looks like a Bunya Pine in the middle. 

From the Botanic Gardens we continued our walk up to Admirals Bridge, a now landlocked Norman Bridge dating back to 1132. They knew how to build to last in those days, ironic given that currently Italy is having problems with Mafia-jerry built bridges collapsing. It has struck me when travelling overseas that the Australian economy could be even more advanced than it is, given that we don't face issues that other countries do. For example a significant part of the Canadian economy has to shut down for winter, due to cold and snow. In Italy roads and railways involve the construction of  frequent massive bridges, tunnels and viaducts that in Australia would be considered engineering marvels. All we have to do is build low volume highways across flat, sandy plains at much less cost.

Admiral's Bridge. The river was diverted some time ago and now runs under the modern bridge who's hoops you can see in the background. 

At lunch I ordered an "Ice Coffee" as the day was warm and I was interested to see what an Italian Ice Coffee would be. It turned out to be a very sweet, black coffee "slushie" in a shot cup. Pleasant but not as satisfying as the Australian latte glass of coffee, whipped cream and ice cream. 

The previous night we had been bothered by several mosquitoes in our bedroom so I set out to buy some personal insect repellent. The supermarket didn't appear to carry any but I found some in a pharmacy. I was a bit taken aback by the price which at 13euro was about twice what it would cost in Australia. Most things here seem to be a similar, or slightly lower, price than at home.

On the way back from the pharmacy I decided to leave the main streets and wander through the back streets. Strangely, some of these opened into much wider streets than some of the main ones but with little traffic. At one point I came out onto a large park with lots of locals exercising dogs and children, and nearby what looked like blocks of housing commission apartments with fabulous murals painted on their blank end walls. One exceptional one was a portrait of a girl in Muslim scarf, in which you could see the artists' reflection painted into her eyes. Beat any of the silo art I've seen here. I also encountered a shop that demonstrated the specialisation retail can take in Italy. In Australia a shop that just sells hats is unusual. This shop sold nothing but flat caps, although I must admit that these are popular with Sicilian men of all ages.

Edward had visited the Convent of Santa Maria di Jesu where he discovered that alms where distributed to the different genders on alternate days. Edward's cynical comment on this was that it leaves room for suspicion as to the strict observance of their vows of continence by the holy friars.  Honi Soit Edward. The Cathedral of  Monreale is also a highly recommended tourist site in Palermo but both involve a small amount of travel from the city centre. In Italy there is a church with fabulous biblical scenes on every corner and it is easy to get churched out-seen one-seen 'em all- so we decided to skip these two and just have a quiet day.