Sunday 19 May - Palermo
It was exciting to meet with our group and guide last night. This morning we were relieved to be able to board our coach and start to soak up the wonderful commentary provided by one of the Sicilian women involved in over-throwing the power of the Mafia gang. She is such a highly educated woman.
First we drove to Monreale to visit the 12th century Norman Cathedral famous for its 15240 square meters of precious byzantine mosaics. The organ is the largest in Europe with its 1080 pipes. May is the popular month for Sicilian children to take their first communion so we were fortunate enough to witness proud families arriving with their youngsters dressed all in white. We had to leave before the service started but then we drove back into the capital with its population of 1 million to the magnificent Cathedral which allowed tourists into the spectacular communion service with its up-lifting choral tributes. It was packed with adoring families gathered together for this festive occasion for which the dress code was straight from Milan.
It was so interesting to be driven around the inner City CBD which we had visited, but this time with the accompanying commentary. And that is why we pay thousands more dollars to understand the countries we have chosen to visit. So rewarding.
We gathered in the baroque Church of Immacolata where our guide felt safe revealing the part she is playing in the struggle to crack the Mafia. Particularly interesting to me Josephine after completing the literature you recommended. Thank you.
By then we were back in the Capo Market which we found so challenging on our first day in this country. After wandering through a little of it we gathered at tables set aside for us to experience authentic Sicillian specialties such as panelle, arancini and cannoli, all washed down with red and white wine of course. A splendid Sunday lunch.
The rest of the group is being taken to a banquet in a Royal household tonight, but we opted out and went instead for a tour of the Teatro Massimo, the Opera House we have walked past so often but not been inside. Tonight we are still hoping to experience the Puppet Theatre.
I am so very sorry that my Facebook photos are not reaching you. I have put a couple on Instagram and Peter is tagging some of my friends on his fb entries which are in perfect working order. I must have pushed something as I am neither sending or receiving emails. Gmail is all I can use. Only a techie geek would be able to retrieve the access for me.
Sunday, 19 May 2019
Saturday, 18 May 2019
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.
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.
Saturday 18 May - Palermo
Friday was the day that we were resolved to locate the tourist information centre and discover all the attractions this cold wet city had to offer. We had found the signs pointing to it but no centre was to be seen. There is no concierge service at our up-market hotel, so we wandered from person to person asking for directions , followed them and got to nothing. Ah, a polizia! He'll know. Yes, walk back to where we'd come from, past 2 lots of traffic lights and turn left. Grazia. By then we were nearing half our daily 10,000 step recommendation. What we were seeking was the Hop-on hop-off bus station. We could see the buses but no stops. Eventually I spotted an i-sign on a little wooden booth on the kerbsite. And that turned out to be it. A little man sat in a little sentry box with his window shut. We knocked on the window which he slid open reluctantly. Parla inglese? He looked doubtful so I showed him the bus brochure which he looked at and pointed over the road. No sign of any other printed material and of course I didn't know what else to ask for. We have no idea how lucky we are in NZ. No signage at the bus stop, so having nothing better to do, we stood there. Very eventually a bus arrived and we hopped on. By then the skies had cleared and we saw Palermo in its historic splendour. The English commentary worked intermittently and was punctuated by Verdi. Extremely pleasant. The passengers in the front disembarked and we did the circuit again travelling first class.
We have now found a lunch provider comparable to our Tank which serves real NZ style coffee so we returned there before doing the blue-line bus route which was not as interesting but meant we have covered the city.
So completed the circuit, discovered a couple who live in Milford, caught up with their travel, had a proper gelato each and came back to the hotel. It was nap time for Peter and serious shopping for me to find a little Italian leather coat which I'm told will be much cheaper in Sicily than Italy. I can believe that. Sicily's funds are obviously siphoned off elsewhere.
After laboriously entering every clothing shop and trying on every possible garment I wore myself out and returned to my hotel. There on the corner was an un-visited shop which housed my little red leather Italian jacket, not even made in China like everything else. Very happily I bought that and the extra jumper the gorgeous shop assistant assured me was perfecto and walked into our hotel.
I had been searching for the Sicilian Puppet theatre which we eventually stumbled across, but which only played at weekends, and Peter had been searching for the Sicilian equivalent of our MOTAT which only opens weekdays. Nothing for it but to wander the main street, watching the passing parade of elegantly dressed Sicilians while sipping vino rossa.
Let's see what we can find today before joining our Globus tour tonight for a formal dinner to which I can wear my newly acquired black jumper bedecked with red sequins.
Friday was the day that we were resolved to locate the tourist information centre and discover all the attractions this cold wet city had to offer. We had found the signs pointing to it but no centre was to be seen. There is no concierge service at our up-market hotel, so we wandered from person to person asking for directions , followed them and got to nothing. Ah, a polizia! He'll know. Yes, walk back to where we'd come from, past 2 lots of traffic lights and turn left. Grazia. By then we were nearing half our daily 10,000 step recommendation. What we were seeking was the Hop-on hop-off bus station. We could see the buses but no stops. Eventually I spotted an i-sign on a little wooden booth on the kerbsite. And that turned out to be it. A little man sat in a little sentry box with his window shut. We knocked on the window which he slid open reluctantly. Parla inglese? He looked doubtful so I showed him the bus brochure which he looked at and pointed over the road. No sign of any other printed material and of course I didn't know what else to ask for. We have no idea how lucky we are in NZ. No signage at the bus stop, so having nothing better to do, we stood there. Very eventually a bus arrived and we hopped on. By then the skies had cleared and we saw Palermo in its historic splendour. The English commentary worked intermittently and was punctuated by Verdi. Extremely pleasant. The passengers in the front disembarked and we did the circuit again travelling first class.
We have now found a lunch provider comparable to our Tank which serves real NZ style coffee so we returned there before doing the blue-line bus route which was not as interesting but meant we have covered the city.
So completed the circuit, discovered a couple who live in Milford, caught up with their travel, had a proper gelato each and came back to the hotel. It was nap time for Peter and serious shopping for me to find a little Italian leather coat which I'm told will be much cheaper in Sicily than Italy. I can believe that. Sicily's funds are obviously siphoned off elsewhere.
After laboriously entering every clothing shop and trying on every possible garment I wore myself out and returned to my hotel. There on the corner was an un-visited shop which housed my little red leather Italian jacket, not even made in China like everything else. Very happily I bought that and the extra jumper the gorgeous shop assistant assured me was perfecto and walked into our hotel.
I had been searching for the Sicilian Puppet theatre which we eventually stumbled across, but which only played at weekends, and Peter had been searching for the Sicilian equivalent of our MOTAT which only opens weekdays. Nothing for it but to wander the main street, watching the passing parade of elegantly dressed Sicilians while sipping vino rossa.
Let's see what we can find today before joining our Globus tour tonight for a formal dinner to which I can wear my newly acquired black jumper bedecked with red sequins.
Thursday, 16 May 2019
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
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
Wednesday, 15 May 2019
Wednesday 15 May Rome
13 hours later, we have arrived at Rome Airport. Actually, we arrived in Hong Kong 1 hour early, so our plane was supposed to leave 4 hours later, but it was delayed an hour so we had a 5 hour layover
. Hurrah for the business lounge where we could lie down in relative comfort. Then the 14 hour flight which left at 1.30am. Now we have succeeded in getting ourselves to the wrong terminal and ordering cafe latte which is woefully tepid instead of caffe caldo which is hot but black. However my 4 pages of Italian on the fridge door have saved me from a tirade of abuse from the Italian gentleman who tore an Aussie woman to shreds for ordering in Strine. So I plunged into my best rehearsed fridge Italian which sent him into paroxysms of praise. Peter has realised that he is entirely at my mercy except for the Malta reprieve. He has learned Grazie though which will stand him on good stead. Thanks for the entrata and uschita tip off Mark. We hit it as soon as we landed and wouldn't have known whether we were coming or going. It is very cold and wet today. Let's see if Palermo can do better.
13 hours later, we have arrived at Rome Airport. Actually, we arrived in Hong Kong 1 hour early, so our plane was supposed to leave 4 hours later, but it was delayed an hour so we had a 5 hour layover
. Hurrah for the business lounge where we could lie down in relative comfort. Then the 14 hour flight which left at 1.30am. Now we have succeeded in getting ourselves to the wrong terminal and ordering cafe latte which is woefully tepid instead of caffe caldo which is hot but black. However my 4 pages of Italian on the fridge door have saved me from a tirade of abuse from the Italian gentleman who tore an Aussie woman to shreds for ordering in Strine. So I plunged into my best rehearsed fridge Italian which sent him into paroxysms of praise. Peter has realised that he is entirely at my mercy except for the Malta reprieve. He has learned Grazie though which will stand him on good stead. Thanks for the entrata and uschita tip off Mark. We hit it as soon as we landed and wouldn't have known whether we were coming or going. It is very cold and wet today. Let's see if Palermo can do better.
Tuesday, 14 May 2019
Tuesday 14th May Hong Kong
We are now reclining in the luxurious Cathay Pacific Lounge in Hong Kong after a superb flight of 10 instead of 11 hours. Nice though it is to have clipped an hour off the flight time, it just means a 4 hour wait for the flight to Rome rather than the scheduled 3 hours. I am certainly not tempted to go airport shopping to acquire Hong Kong junk to up my baggage weight. Business Class with this airline has surpassed our experiences last year with Air NZ and Lufthansa. VERY COMFORTABLE. Not that either of us slept but that was more because of the 1.15pm departure. We'll see what happens for the next leg which is 13 hours. Peter had a flight attendant who fell for him big time. Even brought him bowls of salted caramel popcorn . He had this experience in Shanghai when all the young girls mistook him for Kenny Gee and queued to get their photos with him. He did not reveal his true identity, I noticed.
We are now reclining in the luxurious Cathay Pacific Lounge in Hong Kong after a superb flight of 10 instead of 11 hours. Nice though it is to have clipped an hour off the flight time, it just means a 4 hour wait for the flight to Rome rather than the scheduled 3 hours. I am certainly not tempted to go airport shopping to acquire Hong Kong junk to up my baggage weight. Business Class with this airline has surpassed our experiences last year with Air NZ and Lufthansa. VERY COMFORTABLE. Not that either of us slept but that was more because of the 1.15pm departure. We'll see what happens for the next leg which is 13 hours. Peter had a flight attendant who fell for him big time. Even brought him bowls of salted caramel popcorn . He had this experience in Shanghai when all the young girls mistook him for Kenny Gee and queued to get their photos with him. He did not reveal his true identity, I noticed.
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