I remain in love with Palermo. There are 85 churches here - we’ve seen about 7 so far.
There were two highlights:
1) La Martorana from 1143 - gorgeous inside with a mix of Baroque styles. I thought it would be my favorite until I walked into the next church.
2) Santa Catarina church from 1566 - it was super fun here because it’s quite sedate and ordinary from the outside and then you step inside and BAM - you’re overwhelmed by an explosion of stucco, cool marble colors, frescoes and more. There’s tons of construction going on in there - large areas cordoned off…and I didn’t even care - it was that awesome inside. And we paid extra (10 euros) to go upstairs to the dormitories, for a chance to stroll on the balcony, and wander the walkways above the pews…which I highly recommend. It’s totally decrepit up there - there’s no way it would be open for wandering in the US, but it’s just excellent and there’s almost no one up there. You can peer over ledges looking onto the church below and get an unusual vantage point of the crazy amount of detail.
From the churches, we tried to go to the archaeological museum but it closed early today and so we went to what will surely turn out to be another highlight of Palermo.
3) Palazzo Branciforte - we chose this because it was between our lunch stop and our hotel. We did zero other research. The Palazzo is a repurposing of a 1500s residential home into a library with exhibition halls. There is a totally modern library in there - cool colors of books and art lining the walls and a tall mint green stairwell that’s contained in a bizarre metal cylinder. There is also something called a “pawn shop” from old Palermo in there, which is room after room of wooden shelves and stalls - they were a resale shop and they exist intact, holding a collection of Sicilian puppets. This place is worth a stop!!!!! Short guided tours only - but mostly she lets you just wander around for 30 minutes. Try to Google images of the library with green staircase and the pawn shop - mind-bogglingly cool!
4) Norman Palace with Palatine Chapel - we also made a quick trip here. The Palatine Chapel is undergoing renovation and access is more limited - but the mosaics are still worth the stop.
Tomorrow we meet our RS tour after a quick visit for the art nouveau house - Villina Florio.
I’ll try to post my thoughts on the tour at some point. I haven’t done a RS tour in 20 years.