Today was epic. Really epic. First we had major trouble finding the bus stop to Palermo, then after we found it ,it was an hour wait. BUT luckily a guy that we spoke to earlier who was also heading to Palermo picked us up in a taxi at the bus stop, unexpectedly…….and it only costed us 5 euros for both of us. Bargain really. The guy paid the rest, though he probably thought we were both in high school with our baby faces. Hmmm……
Monreale is beautiful, its perched on top of a moutain looking down towards Palermo and the cathedral itself is spectacular. Remember to wear clothes with sleeves unlike moi who was stoopid (glee, anyone?) and wore a strappy dress. Utter fail. Luckily we had a backpack with us so I could just hold that and look like I wasn’t so exposed…….sorta.
Also its worth paying 6 euros (adults) 3 euros (students) to go into the cloister which is situated on the side on the cathedral as it is really worth every cent. Just take a look at the photos and it will tell you how wonderful they are, they are also one of Italy most preserved cloisters and you can imagine how splendid it must have been back in the years.
Our lovely silence ended in the cloisters once we stepped back out onto the streets, we then had to take the taxi down back to Palermo as the locals told us that the bus no longer works……..but this was after an hour of shuttling around trying to find it. We decided to take it straight to our restaurant which was Piccolo Napoli.
Unfortunately we arrived two hours before it was due to be open (DEDICATION) but fortunately we meet the owner ( I think it was one of the owners), who had reserved a table for us at 8pm! This was awesome as we noticed that some customers who didn’t reserve a table had to be turned away.
We ordered boiled octopus, squid ink spaghetti, urchin spaghetti, sicilian style cooked fish and sicilian cassata.
Squid ink spaghetti came with pieces of squid and had a kick of chilli, although the kick was mild but it really enhanced the dish overall.
Partner in crime sea urchin spaghetti was again a hit all I heard was “this is awesome!”
Sicilian style cooked fish, was fish steamed with tomato olives, capers and a squeeze of lemon juice over it. The timing of the fish was perfect which made the meat silky smooth. We devoured every morsel of it, even the olives were gone.
Sicilian Cassata was slightly different this time, half was marzipan and half was sponge cake…………but we still liked it. Though more partner in crime than me liking it.
Just to note carrying 12 bottles of 2 litre water home was not a good idea………though we planned to get a taxi home in the first place, but still its MEGA HEAVY.
P.s we found out that there was a supermarket, albeit a tiny one, about 2 minutes from our apartment. Utter facepalm situation.
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