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Sightseeing in Palermo

The next stop on what I think of as our “sampling of Europe” was the city of Palermo on the island of Sicily.  The first part of our tour was a driving tour, seeing the city center of Palermo.

Opera House Lion

This status of a lion was one of 2 that sat on each side of the entrance to the opera house in Palermo.  They reminded me of the lions that are outside the entrance to the Art Institute in Chicago, altho those lions don’t have anyone on their backs!

Godfather Death Scene

For those of you who have seen the Godfather movies (and I am not among you), the stairs into the opera house set the scene for what I’m told is a famous death scene in one of the movies.  As for me, I just really like the ornate street lamp that sits in front of the opera house!

Palermo Street Scene

I found the streets of Palermo to be rather charming.  They aren’t really all that wide – in fact, the street we were on was closed off to traffic an hour or so after we were there, so it could just be open to pedestrians walking about……or some sort of parade.  I can’t remember which, but apparently, this is a frequent occurrence!  I couldn’t resist converting this to a watercolor painting – it seemed to better capture the feel of what I saw.

Church Door

I don’t know what it was about this door, but I felt like I just had to capture it.  I love the symmetry of both the door handles and the stairs and railings leading to the door, and the texture of the brick of the church surrounding it.  Hopefully, you won’t feel the glare from the bus window detracts from the image too much.

Bell Clock Tower

This clock tower was part of another church – actually a cathedral, and I was really charmed by all the bell towers we saw throughout our travels!

Church and Fountain

We got off the tour bus in front of this church.  There was a lovely plaza in front of it, and a fountain with a tall sculpture in the center of it (tall structure on the left of the image).  We had a bit of free time to explore the plaza and I did so by having a gelato – black raspberry – yum!

Back of Church

Our tour led us to the back of the church where I captured this interesting shot of the church, standing close to the wall and looking up.  What was interesting about this was that there were 2 smaller chapels, called oritorios behind the church.  This is where they would hold smaller, more intimate ceremonies and church services in the past. 

Palermo Back Street

This is actually the small street behind the large church, and I was standing almost in front of one of the oritorios.  I really loved the feel of these small streets, with the balconies full of greenery above them.

Enjoy!