Dear Guest, Welcome!
I have lived and worked around the world and know what it is like to look out the window and feel the need to want to get away to a beautiful, exotic (but not too), sensory filled, interesting, sunny, place. I learned to appreciate renting a flat rather than staying in a hotel. However, I was often disappointed with the decor, the quality of the linens, the style.
When I came to Palermo I decided to create a ‘home’ as I would like to have it: elegant but not overstated, with a good kitchen, good quality crockery and linens and good art on the walls. I wished for it to be quiet, full of light and airy. And I wanted to be able to eat outdoors, under the sun or the stars, with a view of the city before me.
I hope to have achieved that, for you.
Please consider this as your home during your stay. Feel free to use the library, the CD’s, the DVD’s etc. And, as you would do in your own home, please be certain to return the item to its rightful ‘home’. Should something break, please let us know right away. It is easier to replace things and sort things out before the next Guest’s arrival (please call John at (+39) 389 122 1887 or send an email to ‘ yarepep@googlemail.com).
For those of you who might be fans of Francis Coppola films and have a vivid imagination, rest assured, I have ‘been there’: when I first arrived I thought I had to have ‘special antennae’ in order to deal with my concerns about ‘safety’, ‘mafia’ and everything else I had read about and seen in films. The truth is that it is unnecessary. Palermo is a calm city of about 1.0 million inhabitants. It was, and still is in many ways, a multi-ethnic, poly-cultural, capital that is over 3,000 years old. It is laid back and as safe, as in any large city in the world. There is less random crime in Palermo than New York, for example (and I have lived all over the place as I am a theatre director and photographer).
Our neighbourhood, ‘Al Capo’ is ‘popolare’ – -which means its inhabitants are simple people who tend to the market below the apartment (think Portobello Road about 60 years ago). It is also a family neighbourhood – -there are children all over the place as well as the wandering dogs who belong to no one and are cared for by all. I tend to joke and say the dogs are to Palermo as the cows are to Calcutta.
You will find, hereafter, a series of local addresses as well as a few contact numbers. For those of you who do not speak Italian, know that thePalermitani will bend over backwards to help you with a problem or directions.
Enjoy your stay.
