[Jan. 2024] Seeing the Norman Palace, the most important tourist spot in Palermo, Sicily, Italy, I felt filled with satisfaction.
However, we were late in starting our holiday because I was ill for a few days at first, so we continued to do sightseeing.
It was already dark, but we headed to a palace, which according to information on the internet should still be open.
However, when we got there, it was closed.
It’s a common story that information on the internet is different from reality.
We pulled ourselves together and decided to go into a church that we happened to come across.
To enter, we had to go up the staircase.
This church is called “Church of St. Mary of the Chains” and was built around 1492.
I learned about it from the Japanese guide that was lent to me here.
I was impressed that this relatively modest church had a guide in Japanese in this town, where there are many other more dazzling churches.
In the 14th century, before the current church was built, a miracle happened here.
The story goes that slaves who were chained to the port of Palermo prayed for the Virgin Mary’s help, and Mary appeared before them and miraculously released their chains.
That is why this church is named St. Mary of the Chains.
Palermo really is full of stories.
After leaving the church, we walked back to our accommodation in the dark, seeing the masts of the ships reflected on the water to our right, but my husband said he wanted to eat pizza, so we went out again.
Our destination was a pizza specialty restaurant called Funnaco Pizzalab, which he had looked up on the internet.
It opens at 7:30 in the evening, and we went in as soon as it opened so we were able to get a table, but then both adults and children came in one after another, and it quickly filled up.
It’s obviously a very popular restaurant.
We shared a pizza with sausage and cima di rapa and another one with thin beef + salad pizza called Terra Padernello.
Along with a strong red beer whose name I forgot.
The pizza was tasty, but not as good as I’d dreamed of.
After paying the bill, we were served a glass of amaro.
It was delicious, but the beer and amaro mixed together gave me a terrible headache the next morning.
