Thursday 16th - Palermo
After settling into our hotel Frederico II we decided to go for a reconnaissance walk around the block, have a pizza lunch and return at 3.30pm for a nap before going out to a restaurant for our evening meal. Jolly good idea! We woke nicely refreshed - at 2.30am! It was pouring with rain accompanied by thunder and lightning. After some unpacking and sorting we went back to sleep until 8am. Still very cold, but the rain had stopped. Breakfast in the hotel was reasonably successful and off we set with umbrellas and raincoats and jumpers to find the markets and a Church Josephine had recommended. We walked and walked the sodden streets, and suddenly were in Il Capo, Palermo's historic market and all its colorful theatre. VERY entertaining. Italian men in full voice. I bought 1 banana.
After a recuperative caffe,  we tackled the hunt for the Chiesa dell'Immacolata Concezione. It very nearly beat us, but by showing a succession of very expressive Italians the photo in our brochure, I found a young woman who could speak enough English to show us we had walked past the doorway 3 times. Ok. In we went, very relieved to be able to sit down and admire the famed Italian artwork. The rest restored our relationship and out we went into some very welcome sunshine into the street we should have walked from the outset. And there were the shops!!!! So if we had turned left instead of right, life would have been much simpler. We'll know that for tomorrow.  Fortunately we're here for 5 days before we join our Globus tour so we'll have mastered it by then