Maurizio, a friend of Luca and Delfina, kindly offered to meet us in Palermo and take us to Marsala (home of a sweet wine with the same name) for the day. Maurizio is a tourist guide so he took us to all the best spots along the way, including the Greek temple, ruins and amphitheatre at Segesta. The amphitheatre (which is still in use and were setting up for an evening concert) sits atop a hill with an amazing view over Sicilia.
We continued along the coast to a salt farm with spectacular views and then into Marsala to Cafe Garibaldi with some of the best homemeade gelato we’ve ever tasted, just like Maurizio promised!
Maurizio offered to cook us dinner so after obtaining supplies we headed to his house where he cooked up an amazing pasta, steak and gelatini!
After dinner, we went into the heart of Marsala for drinks and witnessed the most amazing thing we’ve ever seen. At 11 o’clock at night there were people of all ages - from families with babies in prams to 80 year olds with their husbands - packed into the narrow streets all dressed in their nicest clothes! It was passeggiata at its most incredible! It created a really nice atmosphere of community and felt incredibly safe and welcoming.
Maurizio proceeded to take us on a pub crawl of Marsala’s best places. First stop blew our (Brodie’s) mind. During the day it’s a fish market and at night it becomes the most popular bar district in town! It was amazing to see how two completely different uses can be served by the same space (and it was kind of cool to get a fishy scented reminder of this every now and again)!
We went to all the coolest local bars and cafes and drank Marsala, shots of grappa and sampled the local delicacy Panelle (deep fried chick-pea paste). By 2am as we were heading home Marsala was still pumping and the locals were still wandering up and down the streets. It was totally incredible!