March 14, 2017: Breakfast with Francesco

Today is our last day in Palermo.  My friend Francesco who lives locally has been out of town on business all weekend so we had not managed to get together, but he got back from northern Italy last night and we got together for breakfast this morning.

So while Dominica and the kids were packing at the apartment, I walked across the city and met Francesco in a nice area downtown and had breakfast – the Italian standard of coffee and croissants (cornetti.)  We had a good time catching up.

Francesco
SAM and Francesco in Palermo

After breakfast I was running late to make it back to get Dominica and the girls and walk them, along with all of our luggage, back to the train station in time to catch our train back to Noto.  A very busy morning.

We figured out that I did not have enough time for the walk, so Francesco threw me on the back of his motorcycle and we took a while ride across the city.  This is actually my first time ever riding as a passenger on a motorcycle. I’ve done it as the driver before, I had my own motorcycle for a time when I was younger – just a small Suzuki one cylinder when I was about twenty three.  This was a much bigger bike and riding frantically, with no helmet as there was no spare, through crazy downtown and waterfront Palermo in traffic was nuts.  I got the real Palermo experience today.

Dominica was surprised when I was back at the apartment and ready to go suddenly.  I grabbed the luggage and we were underway to get to the train station.  It’s an easy walk without luggage, but with the luggage it is pretty exhausting.

We caught our train and did the long journey in reverse.  It was a very long day, but I appreciated some down time on the ride.  Train to another train to the bus and home and the long walk up the hill with luggage.  Very tiring.

After we were back I walked down the hill and got panini take away to bring back to the house.  We will sleep well tonight.