Part of the Cathedral Palermo, the capital city of Sicily, has been described as dignified and decrepit a view I would subscribe to. It’s history goes back 3,000 years but in recent times it was famous for headline-grabbing assassinations and anti-mafia trials. Palermo is now emerging from it’s troubled past and there is much restoration work under way.

Fontana Pretona (fountain of shame The buss ride from Trapani took 2 hours through pleasant rural countryside, a mixture of peasant small-holdings and huge areas of well tended farming and vines with expensive Villas and farmhouses.

Palermo’s population of over three quarters of a million must all own cars and use them at the same time! The roads were so jammed when we arrived that we were walking faster than an ambulance with it’s emergency siren screaming.

Blossoms Palermo is a popular tourist destination with many sights to see, we skirted round the fortress palace off Palazzo dei Normanni, once the centre of a magnificent medieval court and now the seat of the Sicilian government, then on to the extraordinary Arab-Norman cathedral set back from the street, the foreground planted with palms provides a distinctly eastern setting. We also visited the Fountain of Shame with it’s tiered basins and nude statues depicting tritons, nymphs and river gods.

For us the one of the most interesting parts was walking and shopping in Mercato della Vucciria, Palermo’s most famous open-air street market which trades in vegetables, dried fruit, preserves, cheese, spices, fish and meat amid a tumult of colours, sound, and smells.