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TYPICAL PALERMO STREET
As impressive as Palermo’s architectural gems are, the real Palermo is experienced in its streets, markets, and in its food. Palermo markets are a festival of food. During our threeday stay, our street was closed for an ice-cream festival.
The pedestrianized Palermo streets made it easy to wander around the ornate palaces some of which have been turned into museums. Palermo’s plazas function as the city’s living rooms filled with little cafes, music venues, art exhibits, and strolling citizens. Street food in Palermo can be found all over town in little stalls selling tasty snacks for about 1 – 2 Euros. Try as many as you can especially the “arancini” little, fried rice balls.
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We were lucky enough to be in town the night of a religious street procession. A crowd was singing religious hymns and carrying a statue of Mary down a major street accompanied by priests and musicians. Felt like we were in the original Godfather movie.
Catacombe dei Cappuccini
The 16th-century cemetery of the Capuchin monastery of Palermo grew too small to accept new bodies. The priests were forced to unearth the tombs beneath it to buy their fellow clergy. The bodies were treated with various preservation methods; vinegar wash, embalming, or sealing them in glass. The townspeople began to see these catacombs, or underground crypts, as sacred ground. Why else would priests be buried there?
The residents offered donations in return for burial in the catacombs until having the catacombs as a final resting place became a status symbol for the upper classes. sensing a financial opportunity, the priests began offering tomb maintenance in return for donations. Donations poured in, more ground was excavated until a virtual underground city was created beneath the monastery.
Once donations stopped for the maintenance of a particular body, it was placed on an above-ground shelf–essentially a spiritual hostage–until the donations resumed.
The exhibit is filled with mummies, some remarkably well-preserved. Most interestingly, you can learn about the customs and traditions of the local residents of the time. Well worth a visit and one of the key Palermo points of interest.
