Sicily

Chaotic. Grungy. Noisy. Compelling. That's Palermo, Sicily in four words. 

Palermo was my home base for a trip to Italy during the first week of October. The purpose of the trip was for me to give the keynote talk at the 10th Audit Quality Workshop -- a gathering of 100 or so faculty and PhD students primarily from European universities. My slide deck is pretty fascinating, so hit me up if you want to get the skinny on audit research trends and tips. OK, maybe not. Anyway, this conference is held every two years and is always in Italy. I attended in Florence in 2016 but had kind of forgotten about it since then, so I was glad to get the invitation. 

I had a day and a half to myself before some of my friends arrived, so of course I spent it wandering half strategically and half aimlessly. The first point I'll make is that I think Palermo may have more old churches per square mile than anywhere I've ever been. Maybe it's tied to the absolution ka-ching from hundreds of years of Mafia activity?? I dunno. But it's truly remarkable. I always enjoy popping into random ones as I stumble across them, but three that I can for sure recommend are within about 20 steps of each other in the Piazza Bellini -- San Cataldo (12th century), St. Mary of the Admiral (ditto), and Santa Caterina de Alessandria (14th century). The first is my favorite of the three because it's tiny and dark; the second is bigger and pretty extra in a Baroque sort of way; and the third is really big with interior architecture and other stuff that is right out of a fever dream. I realize Rick Steves isn't going to hire me to write any of his content based on those characterizations, but that's how I see things.

San Cataldo

St. Mary of the Admiral

  

Santa Catarina

Next stop ... Church of Jesus (aka Chiesa del Gesù di Casa Professa). This one is originally from the 16th century and is beyond words. Looks totally simple on the outside, but once you get inside you get a very different picture. Heavy baroque decor and a bunch of old frescoes and such, but in WW2 a bomb collapsed the main dome and it took them 50+ years to rebuild a good bit of the interior. As a result, you have the old stuff juxtaposed with what I refer to as Graphic Novel Jesus. The effect is fascinating.

I think most people who do the church thing in Palermo probably focus on the Palermo Cathedral and the Palatine Chapel -- which are very interesting, with their combined Arab and Norman architecture and influences -- as well as the Cathedral in Monreale, which is about a 20 minute Uber ride up the hill. But Gesu definitely was the church highlight for me. While I'm thinking about it, though, the trip to Monreale is worth taking. The Cathedral was begun in the late 12th century and is an Italian national monument. I've heard it's a madhouse during summer but there were barely any people there when I visited. You can access the roof and bell tower and the adjoining monastery as well, and Monreale is just a cool little town to wander around in. Plus the King of Magnets lives there.

On the way back from Monreale, I got to experience the glories of Palermo traffic first-hand. I'd noticed it was crazy and had heard that it was among the worst in Europe, but I timed my trip up to Monreale pretty carefully in an attempt to avoid one of the three "bad time" windows. The trip up was about 20 minutes. Trip back was at 50 minutes when I decided to just get out of the Uber about 2 miles (aka 30 minutes) from my final destination. There are lanes. Technically. But if you decide to ignore them, it's fine / expected. Plus more often than not there are two cars simultaneously sharing a single lane. Motorcyles are constantly weaving in and out on both sides (frequently going the wrong direction). As my Uber driver commented -- completely unprompted -- about 45 minutes into the return trip, "Palermo traffic is war." When I first got there, my thinking was that the only place I'd seen that was worse was Istanbul, but I'm now going to say that Palermo might well take the cake. If you do go and if you are planning on driving or being driven ANYWHERE, just try to make it between 9-11:30 and 1:30-4:00. But even at that, expect chaos.

On Thursday other people started arriving, so I went with a couple of my friends to Cefalu - about an hour to the east by train. It's an easy trip and wasn't high season, but the weather was warm and there were (conservatively) about 70,000 people trying to get to the beach ... all via the same train. We somehow managed to get seats but people were standing all over each other in the aisles. Cefalu itself is a charming little village once you get off the 2-3 main streets. One of the people I went with wanted to hike to the top of the mountain that shadows the town (there are ruins about 2/3 of the way up and a castle at the top), so I joined her in that quest. In hindsight, it would've been better to just hang out and wander, but it was an interesting climb. The first picture I've included below is stolen from another website, but it gives you a pretty good flavor of the place, and you can see the mountain as the backdrop as well. The one after is an aerial view from the hike about halfway up. Anyway, I definitely recommend a day trip to Cefalu, especially if you are there in the off season. The cathedral is supposed to be cool but it was closed when we were there.

As for the conference, it started Friday morning. People seemed to enjoy / get something out of my 75-minute talk, and a good friend of mine (Hi, Jaime!) and I managed to give some hopefully useful feedback to three PhD students who presented in the session we chaired that afternoon. That night, we all went to the conference dinner at the Santa Caterina monastery, and I hung out for a good long while afterwards with friends from different European universities. I think I headed back to the apartment around 1:30 and it felt (as always) like the evening's activity in the city was just getting started.

Other notable random things ... 

1. I highly recommend Alessandro's apartment. It's an easy walk to the main sights and to the streets where most of the action is. But it's about 100 yards off of the Via Roma, so it's totally quiet at night. If you've spent any time at all in similar areas, you'll realize how important that is. The apartment has dual balconies, is spacious, and Alessandro is a great guy. His pottery shop is right around the corner so you can check out his wares and support the local economy there.
    
2. If you are into old things (jewelry, random heirlooms, table decorations, paintings, who knows what else), you definitely need to visit Fecarotta Antichità. The shop has been in the same family for seven generations, the current guy is terrific, and they have a lot of cool stuff.
   
   
3. For another great small shop experience, stop in at Antica Cravatteria. It's a classy little hole-in-the-wall, centrally located, with a good selection of ties. I realize that basically nobody wears ties anymore, but I'm one of them (a tie-wearing person, not a tie) and I try to find places like this whenever I travel.
   
   
4. I really want to visit this guy's apartment. It's between the Church of the Gesu and Antica Cravatteria, and trust me ... you can't miss it.

Where was I? Oh yes ... the conference ended at lunch on Saturday, and I flew back to Rome that afternoon to break up my trip back to Kansas. I stayed in a town on the coast, Ostia, that is about a 20-minute drive from the airport. There are some well-preserved Roman ruins on the edge of town, but I didn't get there in time to go check them out. I did, however, roam around town a bunch, taking in as much of the local flavor as I could. After getting away from the center of town and turning down a couple of side streets, I found a likely looking pizza shop with a small counter and two tables. Nobody spoke English but I managed to get the point across, and the owner seemed pretty excited to see me. Maybe somebody told her about my slides?? As I started on my pizza, an English-speaking (sort of) friend of the owner came in, talked to her, and asked me whether I'd ever tried "suppli" before. When I said I hadn't, the owner told her to ask me if I would like her to make some for me ... to which I responded "si" (because that's how good I am). So about 10 minutes later, she brings out a couple of fried-on-the-outside croquette-type things, one filled with potato and tomato and one filled with rice and cheese. I thought they were quite good, which made me even more popular. Anyway, if you ever find yourself in Ostia, definitely stop in at Pizzeria al 26. It's extremely local, and you get a big pizza and a local brew for 10 euros (never mind the free suppli if the owner likes you). I can also safely recommend Hotel Sirenetta. It's nothing super-special, but it has a good vibe, is 100 yards or so from the beach, and has a nifty kindasorta library-themed bar and breakfast area.

I guess that's a wrap. Italy is my favorite European country, and what I saw of Sicily was a nice complement to where I've been previously. I'm not sure I'd have a huge desire to return (whereas I would happily go to the Tuscany region every year), but it does have a good bit going for it. They're talking about Cremona for 2026, which would be cool. We shall see ...

Cheers,

Mike