Rain threatened but didn't eventuate. A walk around another of Palermo's food markets was again fascinating with the stall holders, and we saw only males, calling out and tempting customers. This was largely in dialect so a little hard to decipher. Among the stalls was another selling frittoli (offal), which was packed. Mick had a sfincione ( light, almost spongy pizza) which he pronounced tasty. Next stop was the Henri Cartier- Bresson photo exhibit. C-B is a ...

Plans had been laid, timetables checked, all was in order. In order to get to Monreale - a modest ride in the local bus (every 75 minutes according to the timetable) - we chose our time (9.25 according to the schedule) and hopped on the free circular bus to get to Piazza Independenza in good time to buy tickets and a coffee. Having done this we stood at the bust stop for the good old 389 and bought a bottle of water from the seller on the spot. He asked if we we...

Sunday - a day on which you are never sure what you might find open in different cities and towns in Italy. Two major objective sources today - a longer visit to the Duomo (this time for Mass) and a puppet show which we had discovered in our wanderings. Having discovered the free bus, we headed off for the 11 am Mass. when we got into the church at 1150, the previous mass was still wrapping up. It looks like it was a special children's mass, with parents in full...

Our Palermo palace is the only one with one we have booked during this trip with one of those mezzanine bedrooms that takes advantage of the high antique ceilings in the buildings, placing our bed directly under the wood beams of the ceiling. Overnight the rain continued. We discovered that the roof had a minor leak when Mick stepped into a small puddle on the floor at about four am. The drips missed our bed by about 5 centimetres- very lucky. All we needed wa...

The day was spent mainly in the train. We managed the trip by metro and through the labyrinth of Napoli Centrale, found our train and our carriage and settled in for the long haul. The 10 carriage train which went south to The port of San Giovanni, , onto the ferry ( a first for us! ) in two halves. arriages 1-5 continued to Catania while carriages 6-10 headed off in the other direction to Palermo. Contrary to information there was no wifi or food on the train....