Anika Scott rents an apartment in a run-down Sicil
A view from the balcony of our rented apartment at the Casa Giuditta – construction sites and window boxes.
Before we found our apartment in Palermo, a stray dog found us. Her slack jaws resembled a grin, her runny eyes stared up at us with pathetic, doggy longing. I reached out to pet her and got a scold.
"It’s filthy!" Mom said. True enough. But the dog didn’t seem to mind the criticism. As we walked in the dry heat down the Via Lincoln, the dog trotted along behind us, beside us, sometimes in front of us, looking back to be sure we were still there. We stopped, and the dog stopped. We popped into a restaurant to see about dinner, and the dog waited patiently outside. It appeared that we’d been adopted.
Now, we hadn’t gone all the way to Palermo to catch fleas in our packs from the local wildlife. We’d flown in on a $99 Alpi Eagle flight from Venice with plans to rail through Sicily, up the boot through mainland Italy and back over the Alps to my home in Germany – the mother-daughter trip of a lifetime, which by the third day had dissolved into avoiding strays on Sicilian streets.
A half-hour walk from the out-of-the-way Piazza Kelsa, the lush gardens of Palermo’s Norman Castle await.
Yet the stray dog reminded us of why we had skipped the touristy hotels on the Via Emanuele to stay at a refurbished apartment house in an obscure corner of Palermo. We wanted a bit of reality, to live for a time in a Sicilian neighborhood, to get our food at the market in the square, to walk the same streets that the children played in and that the strays… um… did their business in. A real neighborhood meant less insulation from the crowding, deterioration and poverty that is as much a part of Palermo as the Cathedral or the Norman Castle. Call it "reality tourism."
The slogan of the Casa Giarditta, a renovated turn of the century building we’d found on a European travel web site, is: "Do Not Be a Tourist!". The truth is, though, that confronting reality during a vacation is a bit risky. When we arrived in Palermo, lugging our packs down the Via Lincoln with its crumbling stone buildings and graffiti, we began to think we’d made a big mistake. This was the old city, a neighborhood of rowhouses the color of exhaust fumes, empty buildings and construction sites. Men lingered in the streets and stared at us. Broken glass littered the Piazza Kelsa and small cars blocked the sidewalks, forcing us to walk down the street like a two-woman parade.
After a couple of turns round the block, we found the unmarked side street that we hoped was the Via Savona. We perked up a bit. The buildings in the alley were freshly restored with iron balconies and window boxes blooming with impatiens. We found No. 10, rang the bell and Ida of the Casa Giarditta staff opened the lacquered green door. She chattered in rough English as she led us up a spotless marble stairway lit by skylights. We stepped into our second-floor apartment and nearly backed out again. It was more than we’d expected. Airy ceilings, a living room furnished with antiques, a stocked kitchen, bedroom, and a bathroom that in a pinch could hold a half dozen people.
Antique armoir and lacy tablecloth in our Casa Giuditta room.
Ida asked us to sit at the dining room table with the crochet tablecloth just as we were wondering if we’d been wrong about the price. But we hadn’t. For the keys to the apartment, we paid 175,000 Lire in cash per night (about $75) – more than worth it for independence from the typical hotel and hostel hells.
The off-the-beaten-path lodging changed the nature of our stay in Palermo. I took to the very Italian habit of hanging out on the balcony and watching the goings-on in the streets. One of the best meals we had in Italy we cooked up from vegetables we bought at the local stand: boiled potatoes from a vat, grilled onions, warm green beans floating in water, vine tomatoes, eggplant and zucchini supplemented with fresh bread from a bakery. Sure, we went shopping on the Via Roma, strolled through the museums and walked in the gardens with the other tourists. But when the day was done, we went to somewhere we could call home. If only for a short time.
The Palermo Cathedral is an architectural tossed salad with Norman, Byzantine and Moorish influences. It was a 20-minute walk from our rented apartment.
And what of the poor stray dog that followed us to our home away from home? We stopped at a convenience shop down the street from the apartment and shelled out a few thousand lire for a pack of cold hot dogs. The stray padded after us to the apartment door. Mom stuck the key in the lock and we looked at each other, synchronizing without words. One – I ripped open the hotdog pack – two – I threw a couple hotdogs a few yards away but the stray just sat and grinned up at me – three!
I dropped the last hotdogs under the stray’s nose and we sprinted inside. Upstairs, we peered over the balcony to see how the stray had reacted to such betrayal. The good-natured dog wagged her tail and sniffed amid the rubble of the construction site across the street. No hard feelings, her tail seemed to say, and thanks for the snack.