![\"\"](\"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/Il-Borgo\u20131865-for-FB.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt was time for lunch. Nick took me to the trattoria near our hotel that he had found the day before. Risotto is my “go to” food when I’m not feeling up to par. \u00a0We shared\u00a0 (often\u00a0in Italy, we order “uno per due,” which means we share one order) risotto with mussels,\u00a0clams, and shrimp. We loved it.<\/p>\n While we were at the trattoria, my cousin Giuseppe called, saying that he and Maria would like to have dinner with us that night. We went back to the hotel and rested for the remainder of the day so as not to tax my back. After dinner, \u00a0across the street from the restaurant,\u00a0my cousins\u00a0pointed out the biggest tree in Palermo, a banyan. Near it was a tree that\u00a0 been dedicated to someone who was killed at that spot for \u00a0writing anti-Mafia\u00a0newspaper articles, a martyr to the\u00a0cause of standing up to oppression in the face of great danger.<\/p>\n Giuseppe then drove us through the \u00a0neighborhood near the sea. We \u00a0saw the sea wall and the Old Gate. Insisting that we hadn’t eaten enough, he wanted to stop for gelato, but\u00a0I was ready for more meds and another heat pack. After Giuseppe returned us to our hotel, I turned to Nick and asked,\u00a0\u00a0“Why \u00a0have we waited eleven years to return to Palermo?”<\/p>\n We walked 5,010 steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When I awoke, I was amazed and thrilled to find that I could walk! Typically it takes days before I reach that point after a back muscle flare-up. I was able to walk to breakfast, slowly and carefully, where I ate sensibly (granola and yogurt) and passed up the cannoli. After breakfast, I wanted to … Continue reading Sicily, Day 5 – November 21, 2016<\/span> <\/a>We then decided to follow a little of \u00a0the walking tour in our guide book. We came to the Piazza San Francesco d’Assisi, and it\u00a0looked familiar. \u00a0We realized that it was across from the B & B in which we stayed in 2005. That summer the piazza\u00a0was bustling with activity, but now it was almost empty. Next to it, \u00a0the Oratorio di San\u00a0Lorenzo was open, so in we went. The Oratorio contained spectacular artwork, including La Nativit\u00e0<\/em>\u00a0by Caravaggio. There we chatted with\u00a0an eloquent art historian \u00a0from Washington, \u00a0D. C. who returns to Palermo often especially to see the Caravaggio.<\/p>\n<\/a>Giuseppe and Maria picked us up\u00a0and said we would have a “small” \u00a0dinner, just antipasti. The restaurant, Al Covo de\u2019 i Beati Paoli<\/em>, \u00a0was beautiful, shaped like a cave, \u00a0a frequent\u00a0theme in Italian\u00a0restaurants. The four of us shared toasted flat bread, octopus salad, fried\u00a0sardines, shrimp in a \u00a0pink sauce,\u00a0\u00a0caponata (an eggplant dish)\u00a0 prepared with fish of some kind, thin slices of tuna and salmon over salad, and mussels in sauce. Wine was plentiful during the meal, and dessert was a Sicilian \u00a0cake, a specialty \u00a0called cassata. Everything was followed by an almond liqueur the was not Amaretto.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a>In addition to the meal, I enjoyed conversing with Giuseppe and Maria. \u00a0I learned that their daughter, Rafaella, was studying \u00a0for an advanced degree in London. \u00a0She speaks Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese and English, and would like to be an interpreter. Their son, Gianfranco, was in the military. I spoke with Raffaela by phone and Gianfranco \u00a0by Facebook. They told me they remembered \u00a0me because the photos we took 11 years ago were in their living room! \u00a0Nick was amazed at how fluent I had become. A young woman \u00a0who was at the next table with her family heard Nick and me speaking English and asked where we were from. She was \u00a0familiar with Connecticut… she was a student at Yale!<\/p>\n