Birthday in Sicily! Buon Compleanno!

Going against my doctors orders, at the last minute on Friday I decided to go to Sicily as planned. Lee was delighted, of course, but it wasn't his sulks or strops which made up my mind. I had been taking the painkillers prescribed for my headache and these were working. I was feeling well enough to travel, even if it meant taking it easy whilst in Italy. The final deciding factor was a telephone call from a good friend and colleague from my Manchester workplace. She told me to go "f**k it, you only live once!" were her last words on the subject!

So off we went in a bit of a dash and arrived in Palermo late on Friday night. The hotel (Regina) is on the older side of town, about 15 minutes walk from the Central Station. We walked it, and saved ourselves €15 in taxi fares! When we arrived we climbed an old, formerly grand, stone staircase to the hotel reception. So far, this place looked like it needed a fair bit of renovation! The old man, speaking only Italian, took our money and then showed us and a couple of Australian girls who I recognised from our RyanAir fligh, to our respective rooms. He pressed the button to light up the next staircase, but nothing happened - oh dear, we'll stumble our way to the next floor then! We then passed through a secure door and my, suddenly we were in a bight, modern corridor leading to our bedrooms! Although the rooms consisted only of a bed, wardrobe and bedside tables and lamps, suddenly this place was looking like a bargain for the money! The rooms were clean and comfortable, if basic. But who cares about basic when you are paying less than €60/night (incl breakfast).

Next morning was a glorious day with blue skies, bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Lee and I walked to the port in the morning and along the waters edge where we saw some fishermen on the waterfront and on the green park nearby young men playing football. We then walked around the Kalsa area of town. This is the oldest part of Palermo and although many of the buildings are in dire need of renovation this doesn't entirely take away from the character and history you see in the walls of everything around you. As we wandered around, passing through narrow streets dodging the frequent motorcycles and little cars zipping through, we saw children playing football on the hard cobblestones, some sitting idly on the doorstep letting the day pass by with the unhurried innocence of youth protecting them from the frantic complexities of the world around them. As you look down the little narrow streets where some of Palermo's poorer families are living, you see wet laundry hanging from windows and balconies above, clean drips of water falling to the cobbled paving below as gentle wafts of the sweet smell of freshly washed laundry provides a welcome relief from the underlying stench of the sewers below.

In the afternoon, we went to the Catacombs. This was, for me, an uncomfortable experience and something I had not witnessed in my life before. It wasn't that it was particularly scary to see hundreds of dead bodies, some smartly dressed, hanging from the walls or in open or windowed coffins, and all in various states of preservation or decay. No, it was more that I felt I was intruding on their privacy. Here we were, wandering around an open graveyard! I do feel it is a private matter when one has passed to decay in the privacy of your own, closed, coffin! This might even sound a little flippant, but it isn't meant that way. I simply cannot understand why these people chose to put themselves on display (if indeed they did) as the shells of their bodies wither away in smart suits and dresses for all the world to behold. As their fingernails fall away and their hair decays to nothing more than a few wisps, the real person is long gone and leaves behind a decaying shell as a memory for the world. No thanks. Remember me for what I did or didn't do, please, not for what I look like 200 years after I'm dead. Anyway, I don't regret going there, was an experience like nothing else.

On a more pleasant note, we met and made friends with some other people staying in the hotel Regina. I mentioned the Aussie girls, who live in London. Also we met some American students who are currently studying in Milan and were also visiting Sicily for the weekend together with a Canadian student. All very friendly people (save one incident I'll talk about later).

More to come from both Lee and me....meanwhile many thanks to everyone wishing me a Happy Birthday and your wishes for my good health, I appreciate it!