Molti Volti Café, San Francesco Church and San Lorenzo Oratory in Palermo

While we had our plans for visiting Palermo before getting there, once we were there, we discovered things to do and places to eat that we had not heard of before arriving. It all went along with the fact that I think Palermo is underrated, and while there is a good amount of information about the city and its delights, it is good to ask around and get ideas once you are in the city. We certainly learned a bunch from our fellow travelers at breakfast in our bed & breakfast, and happened upon things sometimes while we were out and about. That was certainly the case with the Molti Volti Cafe and the House of Butterflies.

Therese was definitely the one who came up with the latter. It sounded like a nice alternative to the usual museum and church thing that often takes up so much of our travel time – a visit to a sanctuary for butterflies. And sure, it was actually in a museum, in this case the RISO modern museum right in the middle of downtown Palermo (there are a couple of modern art museums in the city, so you might miss this one unless you had a specific reason to go there, as we did).

This was certainly a school kid’s delight – wandering around in the humid plant-filled room with butterflies all around you. We didn’t spend that much time here – maybe 20 minutes – but it was nice to see the butterflies.

After that, there was something of a hole in the schedule for us. I had done some research on some other things in the area, but many of those things were not open until after lunch – and since we had gotten a late start, it was already lunchtime. So I thought maybe if we just wandered a bit through the center of the old part of the city, it might be eye-opening.

Wandering in this way, we did happen on this curious tower, Sette Fate. I thought it should have been called “Sette Gatti” (seven cats) because there seemed to be a huge number of feral cats congregating in the square around the tower, with the smell that you would associate with them.

By now, Therese was feeling ready for lunch, and a Google search revealed that there was a cafe nearby, so we went there. But Molti Volti was not your average cafe. From its decor to its philosophy, this was definitely a welcoming place for us, and someplace where we didn’t mind spending a good deal of time, to eat and take in the atmosphere and relax.

A few minutes after we sat down at a small table in a corner, a huge group of people came in and the place was buzzing in no time. The menu is very cosmopolitan, and we paired typical Sicilian appetizers, eggplant caponata and panelle, with an African-style curry accompanied by basmati rice. The place has a very multi-cultural vibe, with servers wearing a shirt that proudly proclaims “La mia terra e dove poggio i miei piedi” (my land is where I put my feet). I was very happy to discover that they sell the tee to customers, and I brought one home with me.

They also have a huge world map on one wall, and you are encouraged to put in push pins for places you have been that are not already represented, so I added one for Charleston, and connected a string from there to Barcelona and Palermo. A very unique place, and somewhere we will be sure to return to when we come back to Palermo!

After lunch, the churches I had thought to visit re-opened, and so we went there. The first was the Church of San Francesco, whose Medieval-style exterior is in stark contrast to its Baroque interior. I enjoyed the sculptures of the seven Christian virtues by Giacomo Serpotta, a local artist who seems like he may have never left Palermo.

Not far from San Francesco is the Oratory of San Lorenzo, a tiny building known mostly for its Caravaggio painting that was stolen (probably by the Mafia) in 1969. A replica now sits in the place of the original, but that is not all to make visiting here worthwhile. Another Serpotta sculpture is there, and overall, the sanctuary is decorated in typical Baroque/Rococo style, which is to say, opulently.

We had reached the part of the day where it was time to return to our bed and breakfast and chill for a bit before heading out to dinner. There was one street, Via Sammartino, that ran perpendicular to our street, Via Dante, which had a few restaurants on it a few blocks up, so we tried out some of those restaurants. On this particular evening, we went to Trattoria Altri Tempi, a place that, as you might imagine from its title, features typical, traditional Palermitan cuisine.

For my dinner, I opted for “pasta con le sarde” which is fresh pasta with a sauce with sardines and anchovies. Unfortunately, in this case, the fish were cooked down into a thick paste that didn’t appeal to me that much. The saving grace here was the dessert – fresh fruit and small cookies covered with pine nuts, and a choice of three fresh house-made liqueurs – limoncello (yum), then one made with basil (called basilcell) and one made with mint. We actually sampled all three, but I decided I liked the limoncello best (I think Therese liked the basil one).

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