Saturday afternoon  18 May Palermo
I thought I'd write up today's adventures now that we've returned to prepare for our Globus meet-and-greet dinner this evening. We managed to locate the Antonio Pasqualino International Puppet Museum which is on the other side of town from the closed theatre we discovered yesterday. Palermo is a rabbit warren of un-sign-posted narrow alleyways, so the fact that we have located anything is astonishing. But this Museum did have a sign that I happened to spot in the distance and it was going to open at 10.00am. As the clock struck, the curator turned up and let us in. Not another soul was around at that very early hour so we had this whole collection to ourselves - 4,000 of them. What an extraordinary experience.  The Museum was founded in 1975 and houses puppets from Greece, Africa, New Hebrides, Vietnam, China, Japan, India , Bali, Java as well as throughout Italy. I do so hope we can manage to get to a show at the Theatre tomorrow evening.
The Botanic Gardens lay a few blocks away and en route we happened into a ristorante which turned out to be the local TAB. THAT was an experience in itself but I managed to acquire some drinkable caffeine lattes. We were so very out of place but they took our money.
The Gardens were peaceful but such a poor comparison of what we regard as normal. So many statues but most were desecrated to some degree. There was a woeful lack of maintenance  as there is throughout the town.
By then it was lunchtime so I cobbled together enough of my fridge Italian to get a copious salad with their signature tomatoes. Somehow I got a toasted ham roll as well. I wonder what words resulted in that. Never mind, all up it was only 8 Euros together with a bottle of sparkling water and 6 little bread rolls.
Our next challenge was to get back to our hotel via the railway station. YES!!! We're getting it together now just as we join the tour and don't have to think again for a week.
Time for a recuperative snooze before we have to get glammed up for our introductory  dinner.