Palermo is a jewel - founded almost three thousand years ago by the Phoenicians and subsequently ruled by the Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Arabs, and Normans, roughly in that order. It was briefly the capital of the Holy Roman Empire. Patton raced to capture it during WWII.
Today Palermo is a bustling grimy city filled with architectural wonders, graffiti, traffic, restaurants, markets, dog poop, and churches. It's somewhere between Hyderabad and Europe and I feel very much at home. There are crumbling derelict buildings next to lovingly maintained plazas, roof top restaurants, food to die for, and street markets that remind me of visits to Monda Market on Sunday mornings with my dad. And there are even rickshaws ("autos" in Hyderabadi).
By the time Jo arrived I had been to Palermo twice in the last ten days. I took her for lunch to a restaurant and the owner greeted us like long lost friends. To make things a bit weirder, his kitchen help was Bangladeshi - who chatted with me in Bengali. Can't wait to show this city to Vivian and Evan - I feel like I almost know how to make my way around.
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