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ON THE WATERFRONT

One of the surprising (and more than a little disappointing) facts about Palermo is that there is no direct public access to the sea, except by boat.  There is no beach.  If you want to swim or sunbathe on sand, you have to brave the intense, insane, never-a-lull-moment Palermo traffic and either drive west along the Mediterranean coast to Mondello (below), a resort town about 20 minutes away from our neighborhood by car,

or drive east along the Mediterranean coast to Marina Messina (below), a trash-strewn, blowsy stretch of sand about 15 minutes away.  (No, there is no reliable bus service and, no, there are no continuous sidewalks.)

 

If you like to walk by the sea, though, the route along the waterfront is one of my favorite places in Palermo.  The sea and the sky change every day.

Some days, like last Wednesday, the sea and sky are calm and beautiful.  Other days, like last Thursday, the sea and sky are stormy and beautiful.  Every day along the Palermo waterfront is a new day but the same day, which is to say, the definition of Palermo:  fresh, elegant, and well-heeled on the one hand; stale, decrepit, and down-at-the-heels on the other.  Nowhere is this urban dichotomy more evident than at the waterfront. This is what it looked like on Wednesday and Thursday of last week.

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, CALM AND BEAUTIFUL

Whether you own this happy camper parked at the entry to the port,

or a kayak, a skull, a motorboat, a sailboat, or a charter sailing yacht, you’ve likely moored your vessel at la Cala (the marina).

Here you can rub elbows and your boat’s port and starboard with the Carabinieri (the national police),

the Costa Guardia (the Cala is where the Italian coast guard shipped out to rescue migrants off the coast of Lampedusa), and the Guardia di Finanza (the tax police)---big money; big boat.

This is also where you find the swanky charter boats, like the Latife Sultan,

the Blue Pearl registered in Greece but claiming to be from swinging London,

the swashbuckling Hande Capo Galera from Sczcecin,

 

My Bubu from Prague,

the Sea Cloud Spirit, a three-masted sailing yacht modeled after the yacht multimillionaire Edward F. Hutton had built in 1931 for his wife Marjorie Merriweather Post by the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel (the same shipyard that built the Big Bertha and U-boats),

and the Gelkhammar, a “comfortable fishing boat,” made of wood but painted to look like metal, designed by the architectural studio of Flavio and Franco Albanese.

 

But regardless of the swank, you've still got to tank, and that means you're tethered to either the seen-better-days Yacht Club del Mediterraneo

or the equally faded Nautilus,

and you’re refueling at the crumbling Agip station.

When all is said and done, the Cala is where Tony from the neighborhood meets the toniest from uptown and---just like amore---that's  Palermo.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 14, STORMY AND BEAUTIFUL

Needing one last look at the sea before we left Palermo on Thursday, I went for another walk along the waterfront.  That was the day we had booked passage on the GNV Antares, a multi-deck car ferry that, in a former life, used to ply the North Sea, and thank god, because it looked like a storm was brewing and it was going to be a little rough out there.

This is what the sea looked like at around 17:30---three and a half hours before our scheduled departure on the Antares.

 



I’d never seen waves like this crashing over the breakwater in Palermo, but violent storms and high seas are apparently not a rare phenomenon.  Come to think of it, maybe that’s why there is no direct access to the sea in Palermo.

 

As the waves got higher and the skies got darker, I began to be concerned that we might not actually be able to leave that night.  So I walked down to the GNV ticket office to ask if the boat was really going to leave at 21:00.  Expecting an incredulous, "Are you kidding?!", instead I got a deadpan response from the ticket agent, who intoned, “Sì, signora.” And he was of course right, if not also prescient, because by the time I reached the Cala on my way back to our apartment at around 18:30, the wind had calmed down and the sky had taken on a rosy glow.  See, sea, sì.

I gave my husband the good news that we were really going and didn't have to unpack the car after all.  We had time for a cocktail at our favorite bar, and then we loaded the cats into the car, turned off the power, locked up, and drove the two kilometers to the port.

Once on board, we found our pet-friendly cabin, stowed the cats,

and went out on deck to take in the Palermo nighttime skyline. 

Uncharacteristically for Sicily, we left the port at exactly 21:00 and the captain set his course for Naples.  Waving goodbye to the Sea Cloud Spirit, even more impressive by night

and Dr. Evil's floating empire,

we headed for the open water.  It was a little rock ‘n roll-y on the overnight trip, but the Antares was built for seas far rougher than these, and I heard no heaving, clanking, or yawing.  Just the purring of one of the cats sharing my pillow as I fell asleep.

Keep it real!  And wear your damn mask!

Marilyn


 

 

 

 

 

Comments

  1. NewYorkNeuKoellnOctober 18, 2021 at 12:23 PM

    Love the photos, the clouds, the skies, your tone, your Palermo.

    ReplyDelete
  2. MeridaGOroundOctober 18, 2021 at 1:02 PM

    Good pix. Well told, Marilyn!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MarilynOctober 19, 2021 at 10:57 AM

      Thank you--it's a difficult city but well worth the effort.

      Delete

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