We arrived to Palermo on the first, around 11. It was a gorgeous sunny day and a holiday; the traffic not as crazy as usual. We found the Hertz office in town closed, of course, despite their assurances earlier that it would be open. We called their central office and they said there was no drop-off box at that location and suggested that we returned the car at the airport. We said "you must be kidding," parked across the street, and walked to our apartment, which was 3 minutes away. (It turned out later that Hertz did have an open entrance from another street, but no one told us about it.)
Our apartment was on a quiet street, 5 minutes from Politeama, not very pretty, but functional, private, and convenient. By a funny coincidence, Violetta, the owner, was Russian, but we were met by her husband who spoke only Italian. Nice guy. He immediately said that on a sunny day like this he would go to the beach to Mondello (a bus near our street, 20 minutes) and he would get panini there (and indicated by a gesture how good they are). We were a little tired of the fog and cold in the mountains and, frankly, of sightseeing, so we took his advice.
Mondello is indeed 20 minutes away; it is part of the so-called Conca d'Oro around Palermo. It is a little resort place around a beach, with its Kursaal, not the prettiest one you can find, but still nice on a warm winter day.
It wasn't exactly a T-shirt weather: M took her jacket off for the camera:
We couldn't find the promised panini at first, but when we reached the central square by the beach we suddenly found out where all the seafood and all the people were. All restaurants had fresh seafood displays out in the street. But M placed her bet on a kind of a street-side seafood bar that served octopus. We asked for a portion for two and a plate of mussels.
The guy at the counter fished out a big octopus from his pot, sliced it and served us some with lemon.
That and the sun pretty much made our day. We came home by 4 and decided to take it easy, took a nap, and even did a little work, believe it or not. Everything was closed anyway, and we had an ambitious plan for the next day. Vacation is hard work, you know -- you need a break once in a while.
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