PALERMO SHOCKED US 😳 What To See in Sicily's Capital 🌍🇮🇹 | We Didn't Expect This

Hi I'm Chris and this is Jim and we're Midlife Travel Bug and today we are in the beautiful city of Palermo, Sicily. Palermo is the capital of Sicily and one of the biggest cities in Italy and it is full of history. Apparently it is one of the most conquered cities in all of Europe. So we're going to show you in this video some of the amazing sights in this town. We have three days that we're going to be exploring here and we are so excited to be showing you Palermo, Sicily. So we're just at the Palermo airport and we're gonna go take the bus. So we're just about to jump on the bus. The bus comes every half an hour to get to Palermo. It makes a lot of stops so we weren't sure how long it's going to take. It's supposed to be about an hour from here from what I understand. Yeah about an hour on the bus but we just found this taxi share. Yeah so we're going to choose to do the eight euro per person and take the taxi share. We get a nice van rather than a bus and it's going to be a lot quicker. When you exit the airport just head to the right towards the buses and that's where you're going to find the taxi share as well. It's about an hour from the airport to Palermo and what an easier transition than getting on a bus. Navigate the train to the buses or what that looks like but they were right outside when we walked up. We got dropped off from our car rental at the airport and they were right there and we showed him where we had to go and he said okay and we text him on whatsapp for when we want to go back to the airport. So for eight euros each we may just decide to do that because it's a heck of a lot easier sometimes than trying to navigate the transit. This saved us about an hour of travel time. So I did actually check the uber cost and it was going to be the cheapest uber was 68 euros and the other one was 94 euros just as an example. I'm sure a taxi would have been more. Now Palermo is in the north coast of Sicily so you're either going to fly into Palermo or out of Palermo or you're going to fly into Catania. One of the two main cities here on Sicily with the two international airports. We're at the Fontana Pretoria. This 1500s fountain, fun fact, is that it was created and built in Florence and then transported from over 600 pieces and assembled here. Chris with the facts. We've seen a lot of churches in our travels but it's not the biggest church I've ever seen but I have to say it's probably got the most detail when it comes to the architecture. It was absolutely over the top. You have to go in and you can see it. Yeah it doesn't look like much on the outside but when you go in it's wow. Three euros a piece to get in and 10 euros if you want to go up to the tower. Is that right? Yes. Yeah you can go right up to the tower. We did not do that but we're at Quattro Canti. The four corners as they are called here in Palermo. This intersection connects the four quarters of Palermo. Each of these corners are four stories and the first two stories are dedicated to each season. Each of the four seasons and the third and fourth stories represent the Spanish rulers of Sicily with their court of arms. The top stories display the statues of four female patron saints A little bit of a miscommunication but we ordered a sandwich. I ordered a sandwich. It's called Milza. Milza is spleen of a cow so I'm having spleen. It's a popular street food here. We're gonna see how this goes because I've never tried this before. We didn't know we were ordering that. Like a sandwich it's very dark. This could go very bad but just for you guys on this channel I'm gonna show you. It's similar to a roast beef. It's a similar of roast beef. It's very very very exceptional. Okay how do you feel about it Jim? You know I'm gonna take another bite because I didn't hate it. It's all fresh. We just said it's fresh spleen so that's even better. Honestly it tastes like roast beef. It tastes very good. Thank you. I'll eat this. Thank you. Well try Sicilian food when you're in Sicily. It's not as bad as you picture in your head. Yeah we'll finish this one off. Awesome guys thank you very much. Bye. Cheers. It's a Sunday here at the Blaireau Market. We got up a little earlier today to come check it out and see a little more action. Blaireau Market is just in the historical center. It's about five minutes from the Four Corners or the Quattro Conti. And you can come see all the different things going on at the market. Lots of chaos down at the market. Lots of action. Pretty cool to see the old Sicilian ways. And we just ordered a fresh arancini from the lady that was screaming at us over there. I don't think we had a choice. She was very determined to have a sit down and have an arancini. So we decided to do it. I wouldn't want to tick her off. When a Sicilian lady tells you to sit, you have to sit. It is definitely a busier time here on Sunday here at the Blaireau Market. So just chaos everywhere. So it's pretty pretty wild just to see so many people walking around and yelling and screaming and loud music. Sicilian markets are fun. So the cathedral is free to go in and walk around. However, if you wanted to go to the rooftop and see the crypts and there's a bunch of other things, for 15 euro you get access to everything. So we just went in and took a peek inside. It's not as extravagant inside other than the scale of things. But this 12th century Norman Arab style cathedral is just outstanding and it's just beautiful on the outside as well. So if you do want to come in and check everything out, 15 euros gets you to the rooftop and everything else. So we just found this nice little park that's close to the cathedral that leads us to the Norman castle that we're going to go check out next. Yeah just just a great park right in the middle of the historic area here and really impressed with all of the buildings we're seeing so far Too scared to trust you and jump down. I'll keep my status quo up here. Won't let anybody come near. I'll fix it on my own. Years I've been the same. Trying so hard to run from shame. Admission to get into the Norman castle as well as the chapel is eight euros apiece. Holy smokes was that incredible. The Massimo theater, the Teatro Massimo was built in the 1800s and is the largest auditorium in all of Italy and it seats over 1,300 people. So you could take a one hour guided tour here in the theater and it is 12 euro per adult to get in and you have to have a guided tour. They have it both Italian and English. So we're just in the neighborhood called Busseria and Busseria has like a market as well as a lot of restaurants and bars but it's a really famous Sicilian Palermo district. Just you really get the true vibe of the Sicilian culture here. You want really cheap local bars and drinks. Come to Busseria and you'll get the true experience. We visited this the other night and it was like going right back into time and and it was a pretty cool experience. Sitting in a true Sicilian bar, cheap drinks and just knowing the history of the people that may have been in there at one point or another. So if you walk down towards the water from the Historico district you're going to find another nice little area here in Palermo. So a beautiful park right by the water. Just lots of things happening. Another little market happening and just everybody's out and it's just a beautiful beautiful Sunday. Another place to come check out when you're in Palermo is come down to the waterfront and right in the marina here they've got a big boardwalk that you can walk along. There's some restaurants that you can stop by and get a aperitivo. Lots of sailboats to look at but great little place to come down and chill out by the water on a nice sunny day. So Palermo has absolutely blown us away because we came into this city not really knowing what to expect. We'd heard some really bad reviews about Palermo. We'd also heard some really wonderful things as well. So we kind of came in a little bit concerned about whether we were going to enjoy it or not. But after spending three nights, three days here we're actually really pleasantly surprised with Palermo and have enjoyed so many of the historical buildings. Right now we've been walking along the marine area and it's absolutely gorgeous. I definitely think that when you come to Sicily you'll be either flying into Catania or Palermo. Plan on spending a couple of days. This is apparently one of the most historically conquered cities in all of Europe. So keep that in mind. There's a lot to see, a lot to do. The history itself is absolutely fantastic. The cathedrals and the food, the food culture has been really great. You know like anywhere you just have to take the good with the bad and we've really quite like it. The mountains around us are gorgeous and we've had a fabulous time. Friendly people as well so if you do fly into Palermo or you're flying out of Palermo it is worth spending at least two days minimum just to walk around and see the sights. So we want to thank you for watching and if you haven't subscribed please subscribe and like this video. It sure helps us out. But we're looking forward to showing you our next destination. So stay tuned for the next one. Thanks for watching. Yeah see you on the next video guys. Cheers. Cheers. I'm just going to show you our little suite that we have here in Palermo for three nights. We're in the central district so very location specific. We wanted to be close to everything so we can just walk around. So the cost of this place is just over $80 Canadian a night. We're off season. Here's our little studio as you can see. So we got a little bedroom over in the corner there and our kitchen is over here. A little work table that we've already set up and then living room, TV, decent sized bathroom right there with a shower and there's the top view. So that is what about $80 gets you here in the historic part of Palermo off season.