Palermo & Malta

Palermo, Sicily, our first port of call, is known for many things:

the Mafia
the Beaches
the Seafood
the Arancini
the cannoli
the pasta reale (marzipan fruit)
and
the Strikes and Protests.

Not long into our tour we were informed that college students were protesting a tuition hike and it might disrupt a bit of our day. With that we drove up Monte Pellegrino to get a view of the city below.

I had waited a long time for this. A chance to return to the city I lived in for 6 months as a missionary for the LDS church. The city where I became a senior companion. The city where I finally began to speak and understand the Italian language. The city where I really began to love the people and all things Italian. The city that I loved.

I wanted the boys to walk the streets I had walked, eat the food I had eaten, and see the sights that I had seen. But with only a few short hours ashore we were very limited as to what we could accomplish. We did make it to the Sanctuary dedicated to Santa Rosalia the Patron Saint of Palermo.

Rosalia, dedicating her life to God instead of marrying, lived as a hermit in this cave. Five centuries after her death in 1166 her remains were discovered at the exact time a plague that had struck the city ended. So obviously she had something to do with that ;) Anyway this cave is now a shrine where holy water is collected via metal troughs and a golden statue lays here except twice a year when she is taken out and paraded through the streets.

The boys noticed this head hidden in the rocks. Not sure why it's there but it's was kinda creepy and funny. As you enter the cave, you pass by a giant anchor and other silver plated objects in the shape of body parts. They represent something that was healed or how someone was saved by praying to Santa Rosalia.

As we drove back down the mountain to the beach resort of Mondello it began to rain. Instead of strolling through the town we were taken to a bar for ice cream, coffee, or a beverage of our choice. Chris and I got our favorite: cappuccino d'orzo (a non caffeinated barley drink) and he had his first (but not last) cannolo for the day.
As we headed back into town things became worse. The rain was letting up but the student protests weren't. All the roads around the main tourist sights were blocked to traffic. Unfortunately we could only do a drive-by for some of the sights on our list. Even the roads back to the boat were temporarily closed. I desperately wanted to just hop off the bus, but they wouldn't let us. Finally when a few roads opened they just took us back to the boat and that was that.....for Grandma and the big boys. I had waited too long for this. Sicily just isn't a convenient side trip when we visit Italy. It was today or nothing. So Chris and I decided to hoof it back into town, protesters or not, and get some of that food I had been dreaming about for years and to find a box to ship some things home in. What I was in search of were these......

Arancini are fried (or, less commonly, baked) rice balls coated with breadcrumbs, said to have originated in Sicily in the 10th century.^[1] Arancini are usually filled with ragù (meat sauce), tomato sauce, mozzarella, and/or peas.

The main type of arancino sold in Sicilian cafes are arancini con ragù, which typically consist of meat, peas, rice and mozzarella. Many cafes also offer arancini con burro (arancini with butter), or specialty arancini, such as arancini con funghi (mushrooms) and arancini con melanzane (eggplant).

The name derives from the food's shape and color, which is reminiscent of an orange (the Italian word for orange is arancia, and in Sicilian, arancici means "little oranges").

(Thanks Wikipedia)

They were so good. Often I find I'm disappointed when I finally get to have a food I've been obsessing over for some time. Thankfully, on this day, I got my wish and was so very happy that it was granted.

In Malta, our last port of call, we also had a bit of rain. Of course, that did not deter us from having a wonderful day. It was so fun we wished we'd had more than a mere 5 hours. We would have gladly given up our second day in Egypt for more time here.

We first stopped in the fishing village of Marsaxlokk. Here colorful fishing boats line the coast for miles.

We walked the docks, tried some treats (only somewhat to our liking), and sampled their local drink, Kinley. It was bitter and tasted like cough syrup.

Our next and final stop was The Blue Grotto. All the boats traveling to The Blue Grotto enter under an immense arch into a 140ft high cave cut into the rock face.

As soon as we set out, the looming rains began to fall. Of course we had our rain jackets - but left them in the stroller at the dock.

We were wet but happy.

The tour consists of six caves carved by years of relentless pounding by the sea, of which the Blue Grotto is the largest and most impressive. The water seems an impossible cobalt color as the sky reflects off the white sand bottom. The caves sparkle both with blue reflections of the sea and orange, purple, and green of the various minerals present in the rocks.(Indigoguide.com)

Of course, with gray overcast skies we got the muted version of Blue Grotto splendor.

As we exited the small boat and searched for our stroller we were pulled aside by a local fisherman. We weren't exactly sure what he wanted. He put this postcard shown below in our hands and said "Wait, wait here" in his limited English. As we watched our tour group walk away we did in fact wait, feeling a bit confused as we stared at this picture of a 3 ton shark. The sailor quickly returned with his friend - the man pictured in the photo, who had caught this enormous shark. He signed our postcard, then told us to take our picture with him so we did....but they were blurry and didn't turn out. As they sent us on our way we thought it was a pretty funny ending to our day out and about in Malta.