The first real walk of the trip was from Petralia Soprana, where we are staying, to Geraci – around 13 km or about half a day, allowing for dawdling and photos.

It was a stunning day – clear and sunny with Mt Etna standing out in the distance.  We climbed up out of the village and walked mainly through a woodland and open farmland – all fairly easy and at a relaxed pace allowing lots of time to admire the views.

Lunch in Geraci was pasta but for dinner at a local agritourismo there was more vegetable antipasti, although there was plenty of variety and no eggplant overload!

Geraci

Wild cyclamen – much smaller than the commercial variety

Sicilian wildflower

Petralia Soprana

Mt Etna

Yesterday we left Palermo for our next stop, the village of Petralia Soprana, which is close to the centre of Sicily.  For our last night in Palermo we went to a traditional puppet show – dialogue entirely in Italian which was a bit of a challenge but the humour was clear all the same.  Then we headed off to a restaurant others in our group had tried previously which seemed to be the happening place that night so we joined the queue outside with a glass of white wine and people watched for a bit.

Early start the next morning for Monreale, which is about 20 minutes outside Palermo and famous for its Norman Duomo – which also has amazing mosaics and a massive mosaic of Christ Pantocrator above the altar.  The church was built in 1174 using christian and muslim craftsmen and is a real fusion of christian stories told through the mosaics and arabic design elements.  After we visited the cloisters next door which again were a fusion of christian and arabic design.

Then off to Cefalu for a short exploration of the town and on to Sant’Ambrogio nearby for lunch at a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the sea.  Replete and happy it was onto the minibuses for the hour and a half trip to Petralia Soprana.  Our hotel is a restored palazzo – not grand but comfortable and most importantly modern bathrooms! Petralia only has 7000 or so residents and very few hotels – tourism is not a big thing in this area.

Similarly Sant’Ambrogio, which only 5 km from Cefalu, which is very touristy, has very little tourism infrastructure.  Our guide Carmellina is working with other locals to try and develop more tourism in the village to create jobs.

Last night it was more food – a banquet of hot and cold antipasti at a local restaurant.    After which we waddled back to the hotel and bed!

Internet here is weak so not sure when I will be able to post pictures.

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The Palatine Chapel was built by Roger II, one of the Norman kings of Sicily.  While it was intended as a projection of Chritian power Roger turned out to be one of Sicily’s more enlightened rulers.  The Chapel is covered in mosiacs depicting Bible stories but there are elements of the design that seem more arabic.

We arrived early for our walking trip so we’d have a free day to explore Palermo, and are pleased that we did.

There is no escaping that Palermo  is very shabby – and not in a chic way!  But it’s also full of amazing baroque architecture and art – not always in the best condition but nonetheless impressive. The hotel we are in was once a grand palazzo but is now a bit tired; but it still has amazing statues, chandeliers and glass.  Apparently it is state-owned and leased for use as a hotel and there’s an issue around maintenance.

We used our free day to explore a bit – visiting the Palatine Chapel in the Palazzo Reale, which dates from the Norman rule in Sicily in the 1140s, and which has amazing golden mosaics; visiting the Cathedral – an interesting and huge hotchpotch of different styles outside but a bit drab inside – the highlight was being able to go on the roof for views of the city, and generally wandering around the end of town near our hotel, discovering some truly over the top baroque fountains and statues along the way.  The Fontana Pretoria, a fountain full of nudes situated outside a convent was a particular standout!

We met our tour companions last night over a meal of typical sicilian food – a surfeit of eggplant antipasti but amazing deserts!

Today we did a city walk with our guide, learning a bit more about so places we stumbled on yesterday and getting thoroughly lost walking through various markets. Lots of unusual looking greens and vege, huge fava beans and eggplants, as well as tiny wild strawberries.  We didn’t sample the local streetfood offering of spleen stuffed in a bun although plenty of folk were.  In general though the markets weren’t as prosperous looking as say Tuscany or elsewhere in Italy we’ve visited.

We are off to a traditional sicilian puppet performance tonight (UNESCO listed as intagible cultural history no less) and head out of Palermo tomorrow to  Monreale, Cefalu, and Petralia Soprana, which is in the mountains and is our base for the next 4 nights.

Pics to follow.

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We were taken out to the desert park in a fleet of Toyota Landcruisers so the total tour group was at least 200 and probably more – despite that, the landscape still dominates.  The sand is really fine and powdery – and gets into everything.

Above are Romeo the falcon, a cranky camel, and some shots to give an idea of the dunes – with the sand being so fine the patterns formed on the dunes are fabulous.  And the silhouette is of the wait for a romantic sunset – with 200 or so of our friends!

For our last night in Dubai we had booked a desert safari which included a number of kitsch but fun tourist activities – including camel rides and belly dancing (no audience particpation!)

We were driven out of the city to a nature reserve – through vast expanses of new apartment developments which are presumably where you live if you can’t afford the glittering skyscrapers of Dubai proper.  Not much beyond those you are in a vast expanse of sand – and not much else.  On the way we passed the camel racing track and the Dubai 7s rugby stadium – an oasis of green grass amongst the dust.

Once we got to what seemed to be a nature park there was a brief demo of falconry (Romeo the falcon looked pretty fierce), half an hour of dune bashing (which Kumar our driver enjoyed more than some of our tour companions!), a brief ride on a 🐫 (getting on and off was interesting), and finally dinner and a belly dancing show.  All quite fun and nice to be out of the intensity of the city.

As. usual, pics follow.  It’s early here in Palermo and the hotel wifi is temporarily cooperating!

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I hope these give some idea of the scale of construction in Dubai – there’s alot of flat land and they are constructing new skyscrapers at a cracking pace. We saw even more building the following night outside the city on the way to the dune safari tour.

The silhouette was taken on the 125th floor  – which was full of people waiting for sunset.  The shot looking down is of the fountain show in the pool outside the mall.

We’re in Sicily now but I’m still catching up with Dubai posts.

Being in Dubai I wasn’t going to NOT go up the world’s tallest building –  so we took the metro across to Dubai Mall (world’s biggest – 1200 shops!) and eventually found the entrance for Burj Khalifa which is in the basement.  After a trek which tells the story of the building lifts whisk you up to floor 124 in 77 seconds (yes, we’ve been paying attention to various tour spiels! And even on a not so clear afternoon the views are pretty amazing.

Pics to follow when the dodgy internet in our Palermo hotel can cope!