Christmas Eve Day we left Syracuse for Palermo. Before we drove out of the city, though, we stopped to take a few photos on the edge of Orgygia near our hotel. 
And then we stopped at Savia again for breakfast on the way. :)
The drive to Palermo was beautiful. As you can see, we had nice weather and gorgeous views of the hills for the drive across Sicily.
It took a couple hours to get to Palermo, where the TomTom saved us again! Contending with Sicilian drivers, confusing traffic patterns, lack of legible street signs, etc. Somehow, with Eddie and an extra circle or two around the hotel, we managed to get to the Grand Hotel et Des Palmes. We didn't get a good shot of the front of the hotel or the lobby, which did give a nice impression, but this was the view from our window at night.
We were too late to do much sightseeing, so we decided just to walk around the neighborhood a little bit. We headed a little northwest first and found Teatro Politeama:
In front of the teatro was the Christmas Tree, which has a different corporate sponsor each year. This year's sponsor was Swarovski, so the base of the tree was covered in multi-colored bits of glass. Vaguely tacky.
We took a stroll down Via Maqueda and - voila! - stumbled across the Teatro Massimo.
You can practically hear Al Pacino screaming! Sorry, I digress.
For dinner we went out to Cappricio di Sicilia, in spite of the "interesting" advertisements with the naked woman as a dinner table! The food was good, and the bottle of wine (Charles's notes say Rosso Del Conte
2003, Tasco D'Almerita, Vendemmia) was outstanding!
In the second picture taken by the Orgygia on Day 6, Aldus is clearly saying "Yay!"
That child is supernaturally cute, isn't he?
Posted by: Merrill | January 28, 2008 at 09:41 PM
I think he's also clearly reaching for my left boob. What a little stinker!
Posted by: Krees | January 29, 2008 at 10:11 PM