Thursday 27th October 2011 – Palermo

Hello from the island of Sicily and in particular the city of Palermo once regarded as Europe’s most dazzling and grandest city.

On a whistle stop tour of the centre of the city any visitor should not miss seeing the Corso Vittorio Emanuele and the huge cathedral or Duomo. Although it has been modified many times over the years, but is still a good example of Sicily’s unique Arab-Norman style.

Dragging yourself away we walk onto to see the elegant Piazza Pretoria, home to the beautifully ornate Pretoria Fountain. This fountain was created by Florentine sculptors in the 16th century and was nick named the Fountain of Shame because of the nude statues.

Recently the fountain has undergone an extensive restoration which is now complete and the whole ensemble is wonderful to see and photograph.

In the Piazza Bellini can be found Palermo’s favourite wedding venue, the fabulous church of La Martorana. Probably one of the most interesting features of the building is the bell tower.

I decided to escort one of our organised tours to the Corvo Winery that is around 50 minutes from Palermo. The winery is situated in the village of Casteldaccia.

Among the best of all the wines on the island are from Corvo and this winery dates back to 1824. The guided tour of the winery included a visit to the little museum that has plenty of traditional Sicilian agricultural items alongside photographs. Continuing with the visit to the winery itself we saw the Slovenian and French oak barrels that were full of the glorious wines that were maturing.

Of course after the visit enjoyed tasting two of the labels of wine and a Marsala wine together with delicious snacks of Sicilian origin.

These are fine wines and the passengers certainly enjoyed their tastings and many then bought some of the wines from the shop.

Whilst out and about the streets of Palermo some of the passengers found other items of Sicilian interest to buy such as the puppets which even today are a Sicilian speciality, beautifully hand crafted and modelled on an original collection of 300 built at the turn of the century by a local craftsman.

I really enjoyed the day here in Palermo and the sun shone for us which added to the overall charm of the place and the people.

We now look forward to calm seas for our sail back towards our home port of Southampton. In many ways to cruise to the Mediterranean at this time of year is a prospect that some will reject as the sun has lost some of its power but on the other hand with less crowds and superb sunsets to enjoy it may be just the sort of tonic we all need before the winter months.

Graham Howell