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 force. Somehow, even though it finished just about when our mass was due to start, we were only about 10 minutes late getting under way. The local bishop has a good reptutation as a man who looks after the poor, but he wasn't on duty today. The mass was pretty much stock standard. The sound system - and the fact that the priest didn't talk into the mic, made it a bit tricky to follow the sermon. From the bits I did get, we weren't missing much. He managed to turn the call of Samuel into a rather turgid and repetitive collection of pious platitudes.

We joined some of the faithful at the bar across the road for a coffee before getting the bus back home' for lunch, then set out again for what was supposed to be a 3 pm show in the Teatro Argento, a dedicated puppet theatre which preserves the traditions of Sicilian - and particularly Palermita - puppetry.

We arrived at 2.45 but the show didn't get under way until 3.45 as we had to wait for a tour group of about 40 Italian tourists. No apologies made. When one late arrival suggested we might slide along our seat to accommodate them, I simply explained that we had a good view, and we had been here for three quarters of an hour, so we would not be moving for them. So much for good will.

The show began with a bit of a potted history of puppetry in Sicily. From what I could make out, there are differences between Catania and Palermo in the type of puppets - with Palermo's being smaller, and having knees which bend.(Although it should be noted that neither type has strings or rods attached to the feet.)

A: The show was a lot of fun with great verbal insults being exchanged by Orlando in defence of Angelica and against the Saracens.

M: After this exhausting program, we spent the remainder of the day recuperating and planning the next few days around the weather forecasts. As Monday promised to be fair, the plan was to take the bus to Monreale, another jewel in the Arab-Norman heritage of the area.