First few Days in Palermo

Giardino Inglese, Palermo Italy

My first few days in Palermo consisted of catching up on rest and getting organized.  I had clearly neglected my body’s desire for sleep in preparing for this trip and this became wildly apparent as I had the opportunity to sleep without and alarm clock. Before I left I attempted to winterize our house and get everything set to go for when we got back in January.  I’m sure glad I did, but wow, did everything start to catch up with me those first few days.  The first week flew by rather quickly.  As a treat for my arrival, Paul got us a Groupon to a fancy restaurant down by the marina.  It was tucked away in-between two streets.  We of course arrived very early, in our standard American way, and asked for a table outside in the dead of winter in Palermo.  Our waiter was excellent and we had the restaurant, De Gustibus, all to ourselves.

Pasta, pasta, pasta... and cheese! 

Teatro Massimo, Palermo Italy

Outside a beautiful, large Church. We only popped our head in for Mass.

But first, let's take a selfie.

Out door seating area for our first evening out on the town in Sicily.

We started out with a large platter of fresh seafood that Paul was in charge of consuming.  We were slightly confused on what was all included in the meal and assumed incorrectly that this platter was the entire main course.  So Paul ate the plate in its entirety, including raw oysters on the half shell HAH!  As we sat there placing bets on whether Paul was going to get sick, out comes two beautiful main entrees of Grouper ravioli and lobster risotto.  The flavors were outstanding. Paul immediately regretted eating all of the questionable tentacles on the first plate, but we easily cleaned our plates.  Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, they brought out dessert.  For Paul, a warm chocolate cake with a warm flowing center, and for me, an almond ice cream cake covered in crisp, light chocolate.  We agreed that they were probably the two best desserts we had ever tasted.  The evening was wonderful and an excellent way to begin our adventure.

The atmosphere was perfect!

Risotto was outstanding... not too shabby!

The remaining days I continued to iron out some of our travel details, take walks, and send a few emails back and forth to those in Pittsburgh.  I also attempted to cook dinners for us in the evenings with the two ancient frying pans the kitchen was furnished with.  A few good meals resulted, while others didn’t really meet our generally low standards, haha, whoops! We were pretty hard pressed to find good food that doesn’t require an oven or anything too complex. 

De Gustibus, Palermo Italy

The time together was perfect.


 *****

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Alyce Jane, Living Simply