My humble house

Orto Botanico di Palermo ( Palermo Botanical Garden ) and Ballero Market , Oct 7, 2026

zorahak

Today we decided to take it slow too haha . Went to Ballero Market and bought dried herbs and halal butcher to get chicken to make chicken soup. Jannet not so well so we thought we make chicken soup . Rahiyah and I took a walk to Orto Botanico di Palermo which took us 20 minutes.

The outside entrance , looks Grecian right ?

The Garden shop was lovely. Of course, bought a Visitor’s Guide book to the Garden. This is a horticultural garden by the University of Palermo so it is akin to Kew Gardens in terms of it’s garden philosophy .

We liked the wall paper
At the Garden Shop exhibition
The seed of a sea coconut

The garden’s began in the late 18th century, during the Enlightenment, when Palermo was embracing European scientific ideas.

1779: The Royal Academy of Studies in Palermo — predecessor of today’s University of Palermo — established teaching in natural history and botany. A small botanical garden was created near Porta Carini, mainly to grow medicinal plants for teaching.

The first site quickly became too small, so a new location was chosen beside Villa Giulia, where the garden is today.

1795: It was officially inaugurated. The handsome neoclassical Gymnasium, Tepidarium and Calidarium were designed by French architect Léon Dufourny. The original plant collections were arranged according to Linnaeus’s classification system, so it was very much a scientific institution, not simply a pretty garden.

1789: Construction of the present garden began.  During the 19th century it expanded considerably and became important for introducing and studying plants from tropical and subtropical regions around the Mediterranean. The  garden today is 10 hectares .

Huge palms all thriving well
I like all these rows upon rows of terracotta pots . Not a plastic pot in sight !
Then we sighted these flowers . What on earth are they ??
Rhizomes out of the soil, very pretty
Me without my hat because the garden had many matured trees so it was shady to walk and cool too
Princess Carolina Green house
Rows of teracotta pots of cactus
In Princess Carolina Green house
This is a boungavilla
I do not know what flower this is. From Mexico .
Rows of lovely begonias of different types in lovely pots
Glass roof of the green house
All terracotta, sigh
The walkway from the greenhouse
Then we spotted these look-alike tiger lilies but they are like climbers on a tree
The label said besides the scientic name that they are from South West Africa
Trees lined walkway. Rather nice

The garden has a good collection of palm and cactus . I suppose the Mediterrean weather is suitable for these type of plants as well as bananas .

A group of bananas
These palms are from California and very tall
Fruits of a palm
A different type of palm tree

The garden was lovely and shady to walk through . It was very peaceful . In the shade, it is cool, really amazing that . We then walked through the cactus part of the garden .

Giant cactus
Cactus flower
Collection of cactus
Magnificant
Many cactus fruits
Rahiyah with the cactus
Huge ficus tree. Bn here since 1845
Ficus tree branches out
Me infront of ficus tree
Then , we came to a pond with lotus & water lilies
Water lilies

In the morning before going to the garden, we went to Ballero market which is nearby to the apartment . Ballero market is much like Chow Kit haha but cleaner but as noisy .

Cactus fruit . Tried that . It is sweet .
Arancini which is a snack here. Balls filled with rice & mince beef or spinach & mozarella. Its quite filling due to the rice .
Seafood

You can eat at the market which we did one day for breakfast. But it wasn’t cheap. Maybe that lady rip us off but she gave an itemised bill so I do not think so ..oh well. We did have a good breakfast .

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