The Walking Man: Caio, Caio, Caio UK, Bonjourno Sicily!

We left the cold and miserable UK for warm and sunny Sicily. We are spending four days in Palermo, then Trapani for 2 weeks, and then Cefalu for a month. It's gonna be tough, but someone's gotta do it. However, if you do it, don't do Palermo. As they say here, "ees a dump" or something like that. The main airport is here, so if you fly in to Palermo, get out as soon as you can. Palermo was bombed heavily during WWII and it hasn't been fully rebuilt to this day.
The traffic is Palermo is as crazy as I remembered it from Rome. Lanes are more a suggestion, as are traffic lights and pedestrian crosswalks. If the crosswalk is not controlled by a light, you just walk out in the street and stare at someone until they stop, then others (usually) follow suit for the briefest of moments. It is not uncommon to have traffic whizzing by on all sides of you as a group od pedestrians moves across the street. I liken it to the fish in the sea: they all swim around each other, rarely hitting one another. Except these urban fish have horns in their cars and motorcycles, which they use frequently to let you know that you are doing something wrong, or in their way, or they are passing you or whatever. We even saw an old gentleman walking down the street with a air horn tied to his neck.
When a motorcycle (and most times a car) enters a street from a side lane, the don't stop before entering. Rather they flow into the traffic, around the cars and cycles whizzing by. They sometimes go into the opposing lanes of traffic as they weave into their spot in traffic. And if they want to go across the lanes, well, then one just does. Whatever is behind you is behind you. How not to hit you is their problem to work out. Fun stuff!!
And no baby seats either in the cars. Toddlers stand up in the front or back seats, practicing their best balancing act. Maybe this toughens them up for the time when they are hurtling down the streets in their own vehicles!
One saving grace is the open air markets!!!

Calamari salad!

Swordfish is all over the place here. No charge for the cigarette ash.

Just gross.

Fresh fish abound!

A mixture of North African and Italian vendors.

Prickly pear.

Heaps of shrimp.

Smoked mozzarella as large as a basketball.

Look, a swordfish!

The buildings are a hodgepodge of sorts, as the building codes are, how should I put it, not strictly enforced. Wink, wink.

This owner is trying for the artsy look.

Lots of graffiti here, usually political.

Many, many gutted rooms above the ground floor businesses.

A bajillion motorcycles and scooters here.

Contrast of the old and new, side-by-side, is very common here.

Park anywhere you want, facing any way. Double-parked, triple-parked, on the sidewalk is okay.

Here is a car pulling onto the main street from a side street. No stopping, just pulls in front of the motorcycle and cuts in front of the car, causing it to brake sharply, then speed up and so it goes.