Palermo...Anoffer I Couldn't Refuse ; Griff Rhys Jones Is Enthralled by the Mafia Undertones and Decaying Grandeur of Sicily's Harbour City

Summary

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WE REALLY ought to move the next series of BBC2's ruin-watch hit series Restoration to Palermo in Sicily. Almost any piazza in the old town would do. 'So, do you want to rescue this 17th Century fountain...' (great creaking and clattering sound out of vision) '... this part-Norman church...'

(a few bricks tumble past) '. . . or this spectacular, decrepit palace?' And there they would all be, crumbling away next to each other, all falling down in the same square mile, right on top of me.

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Palermo...Anoffer I Couldn't Refuse ; Griff Rhys Jones Is Enthralled by the Mafia Undertones and Decaying Grandeur of Sicily's Harbour City

The island capital is the makeover fantasist's sweetshop; look up around you, down an alley, across the street, into a shop. Imposing gateways, huge doors leading to shadowed exotic courtyards, baroque staircases and jutting balconies pop up like targets in a heritage arcade, all in an advanced state of decay.

I visited on impulse. Palermo's been on my list of quick, cheapo excursions for some time, and I had a window in my own diary frontage.

Is there anything more wonderful than to jump on a Pounds 60 flight and walk out at the southernmost extremity of Europe into what, to all intents and purposes,...

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