One little known fact about Sicily – it’s cold in winter. And people are constantly get surprised that I notice that.
Yes, technically +11 C is not cold, if you are in a place with normal level of humidity. But unfortunately Palermo is not one of this places, which makes surviving summer and winter here extremely challenging.
I first came to Palermo on April 6 2014. In about two weeks I was coming back to the office from lunch and met one of my colleagues downstairs, but the entrance to the building. I was wearing my coat, the biggest scarf I owned and a pair of boots, and I was still freezing – the wind from the sea is usually so cold it really gets to your bones. My colleague, who was also wearing warm clothes asked me: “But do you feel this cold or for you it’s okay?” At that moment I couldn’t even feel my nose, so I just nodded as a puppet and mumbled something like: “Oh, I can for sure feel the cold”.
But I was ready for this – I did my research before the project and knew that the humidity is going to be crazy (even though it didn’t really prepared me for my first Sicilian winter! I will never ever forget December 31st 2014 – first snowstorm Palermo have seen in more than 30 years, 100000000000% humidity and putting blankets on windows to keep my room from turning into a freezer). And yes, I feel much better in Kyiv at +4 that in Palermo at +12. But nevertheless - Sicilian winter is beautiful. Blue sky, orange trees, flowers, beautiful sunsets and… no snow. Because I was never a fan of snow, especially in a city – it’s messy, makes everything more difficult and eventually gets gray and dirty.
