Our last Panini
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2010
1
28
51
Trip End
Jan 16, 2011
Where I stayed
Palermo, Sicily, Italy
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
We were pleased with the Hotel Ariston, The manager Giuseppe was very helpful with maps, and guidance to sights and eateries. The Wi-Fi actually worked as advertised! I could sit in my room and access the net. The hotel itself was close to the rental car drop off and 2 blocks from the bus that would be taking us to the airport in two days. We spent our first part of the day at the self service laundry mat, and the afternoon I caught up on my blog. It was really nice to have all clean clothes again.
Somewhere along the trail I had asked a hotel staff member if there was a subway in Palermo. He said, " Are you kidding? This is Sicily. Every time you dig here you find something Roman or Greek, you can't dig here."
We spent the next day visiting an old cathedral, at first we found it closed by yet another student protest, but later we managed to get in. The Main chamber had a brass line that ran diagonally across the floor. At regular intervals, there were zodiac symbols inlaid in the marble floor. The buildings designer had left an opening in the church ceiling. The light from the opening would cast a spot of light on the floor. As the year progressed and the earth tilted on it's axis, the spot would move across the floor. I shot a few photos of this zodiac floor and will include the pics.
We visited the Fontana Pretoria fountain, built in 1573. Once it was installed in the city, the fragrant nudity of the nymph statues proved to be too much for the Sicilian Church goers, who dubbed the Fountain as " The Fountain of Shame."
My blog has noted the strategic position this country has held, and the power struggles here over the centuries. It was not always ancient history when the struggles played out here. During WWII, in July of 1943, the Allies invaded Sicily with Operation Husky, and two months later Operation Avalanche was launched to invade the Italian mainland south of Salerno. While we were traveling these areas we did see what looked like an Allied military cemetery from the train near Paestum, where a major part of Operation Avalanche landed, opposed by German Panzer Divisions. There is also a large British military Cemetery near Syracuse where British Commandos and Infantry fought and died. These invasions pushed the Nazis north and helped provide support to the Italians, who had turned on the Mussolini Facistas. These successes I came at a great price. Americans, Canadians and British have buried many of their sons on Italian soil. Many many Italians died as a result of these efforts as well.
I must admit, that as we prepare to leave Italy, I am getting a bit nostalgic. While it will be some time before I order a Panini sandwich again, I know I will miss the coffee here. They make the best coffee in the world here. From the fancy shops with $5,000 dollar coffee makers to the small shops and railway stations, it has been a consistently great Cappuccino Heaven. I think it was here that the idea for Starbucks came into being. Then it went global.
I am going to miss these people. We have so many funny and friendly encounters with them. Frequently people would ask us "Where are you from? " We would reply "America". Every time they would smile in surprise and many would say something like. " I lived five years in Chicago!", "My brother lives in Los Angeles" ,and the laundry-mat lady said she had lived 12 years in Boston. Every time they were pleased to see us, and It felt really good. I became very aware of how close our countries have become as a result of these waves of immigration many years ago.
I want to recall one funny scenario that happened to me in Rome. I had left the room after sunset to run 2 blocks down the street to get a hotel picnic spread. As I left the hotel, I became aware that it was pouring rain. I ran down the street as fast as I could. I was soaked as I entered the small corner delicatessen. The place was normally jammed with locals and tourists alike. That night it was me, the meat guy, the cheese guy and the manager. I ordered a wonderful selection of cheeses, a couple of kinds of olives, some hot spicy salami, some prosciutto, a few small baguettes, and a bottle of red wine. The cheese guy and the meat guy prepared the items I had selected, then conferred over a small slip of paper. They handed me the prepared items and the paper and directed me toward the Grey haired gentleman sitting behind the cash register next to the door. It was really raining out, and I had raindrops dripping off my forehead and nose. I said the the old cashier, "Man, it is raining out there." Then as, he was tallying up the items cost on the adding machine, I heard him begin to hum. Dah, dee, dah, de dah; Dah, de dah de, Dah; I started singing along. The meat guy joined in spining around like he held an umbrella, and the cheese guy was grinning as if he was swinging from an imaginary street light. "Singing in the rain, I'm singing in the rain, " we were all into it. I yell "Kelly!" , the cheese guy replied, "Gene Kelly." as he spun from his imaginary street pole behind the cheese counter. It was a hoot. I left the store laughing through the rain back to the hotel. I will never forget it. What characters.
The morning we left town for our flight to Milan with connections to Paris, we stopped by a favorite shop called Bacco. The owner Sandro was just opening up. He had made us a terrific pork sandwich the night before. I took a couple photos of him and his shop. He too has brothers and a father in Chicago. He has a wife and son here.
We walked on to a fancy coffee shop named Spannato. We parked our bags and ordered two coffees. We were a bit out of place. The locals were well dressed and ordering fantastic pies and cakes to go was well as their morning Java. The owner was in charge of this operation, which has been in business since 1860. He was dressed in an impeccably tailored Italian suit and was running an expresso machine that cost more than most people pay for a car. He was blur behind the counter, making cafes or many types. He was grinding, packing, loading and cleaning all at the same time he was sending verbal orders out to his team of servers. It was like watching ballet. Pounding, spinning, pointing, ordering, no wasted effort! A real performance in a $500 dollar suit! He made coffee making into a performance art form. I wish I could have taken a time lapse movie of the scene. While the delicious pies and cakes passed by, Barb and in watched in amazement. We were watching our euros and were only having coffee. The owner asked where we were from and where we had been in Italy. We told him we were Americans and gave him the 6 week synopsis. As one beautiful Pistachio Cheese cake passed by, Barb said "Look at that one!", It was a green dreamy cheesecake. It 's edges were covered in crushed pistachios, and had a light green glace' on top. We were just finishing our coffee Americanos and about to leave. Then a nice slice of the green beauty was hand delivered by the owner to us at no charge....Can you believe these guys? The cheesecake `was out of this world. It was fabulous. If you are ever in Palermo, check out Spannato near the Theater in town center! After savoring the culinary art of this Palermo institution, I did manage to take a few stills of the owner and his shop.
We headed to the airport as we are flying to Milan today, then on to Paris later this evening. We need to be in Paris tomorrow PM to hook up with our free ticket to Cairo. Reports are for some bad weather in Paris...... Stay Tuned.
Comments
I love the deli story! wonderful
This reminds me of a similar example of such presence of mind offered in R.H. Blythe's Zen in English Literature. To quote, "...the head waiter interested me highly, so that my eyes constantly followed him and all his movements; and indeed he was a remarkable being. The guests who sat at the long table were about two hundred in number, and it seems almost incredible when I say that nearly the whole of the attendance was performed by the head waiter since he put on and took off all the dishes, while the other waiters only handed them to him and received them from him. During all this proceeding, nothing was spilt, no one was incommoded, but all went off lightly and nimbly, as if by the operation of a spirit. Thus, thousands of plates and dishes flew from his hands upon the table....Quite absorbed in his vocation. the whole man was nothing but eyes and hands."
This, of course, seems to mirror your observation of the Italian owner waiter. Good job, Tom!
I just read your post to my twin brother, Ron. He deemed your description of the Italian owner/waiter to be as artfully put and articulate as the Dickens quote used by Blythe about the english waiter. that's no small compliment?
That is a compelment! I do better when my attitude is right. Sometimes I takes notes during a trip, then draft a bit, then watch the photos and that helps modify the story somewhat. Barb and I often discuss the day and I include some of her insights. I really appreciate her tolerance for my blogging activity. Of course the more time I have to work it the better it gets. The right attitude is hard to maintain, so far though, no writer's block. Please pardon the spelling and typos. I high school typing class, I thought to myself, "Who is going to need typing anyway?" Onward with two fingers and no spell checker. Tom