The restaurant our first night was, fun but the food was only okay.  I’m afraid we got spoiled the first meal in Acireale with the homemade pasta and garlicy clams. 

We did catch this street scene on the way home.

Wonder who ends up with whom?

The streetlights and stucco building made everything look golden.

Back at our hotel

Late morning snack

We thought we were ordering iced coffee slush but it was more like coffee flavored cool whip.

This woman was a Singaporean married to a Brit and they were lost so Linda and Frank shared what we knew.

This was a street of small shops mostly selling cooking and baking pots and utensils, but one time it must have been a Jewish section of Palermo.

A marzipan mold: unfortunately none with a pomegranate image

Lunch menu was written on the table paper

Frank had checked on this place late one afternoon and we aimed for it our first night for dinner but it was closed; only opened for lunch so we went there our second day.

Fish of the day

I remembered half way through to take a photo.  It was some kind of tasty white fish with a cheese, seafood, bread stuffing.  The men at the table near us had ordered it and told us it was good.  And even offered a taste! 

The place was packed with lines waiting for outdoor or indoor seating.

This fellow saw me taking photos and wanted his taken so I did.

All gone

By 5 pm or there abouts when I walked past, it was as if the place had never existed.  They really only do lunch. 

An interesting pattern book and fashion design shop

Seemingly discarded puppet theater that we passed in an alley on our way someplace else.

   “The puppet theatre known as the Opera dei Pupi emerged in Sicily at the beginning of the nineteenth century and enjoyed great success among the island’s working classes. The puppeteers told stories based on medieval chivalric literature and other sources, such as Italian poems of the Renaissance, the lives of saints and tales of notorious bandits. The dialogues in these performances were largely improvised by the puppeteers. The two main Sicilian puppet schools in Palermo and Catania were distinguished principally by the size and shape of the puppets, the operating techniques and the variety of colourful stage backdrops.

These theatres were often family-run businesses; the carving, painting and construction of the puppets, renowned for their intense expressions, were carried out by craftspeople employing traditional methods. The puppeteers constantly endeavoured to outdo each other with their shows, and they exerted great influence over their audience. In the past, these performances took place over several evenings and provided opportunities for social gatherings.

The economic and social upheavals caused by the extraordinary economic boom of the 1950s had a considerable effect on the tradition, threatening its very foundations. At that time, similar forms of theatre in other parts of Italy disappeared, some of them to re-emerge some twenty years later. The Opera dei Pupi is the only example of an uninterrupted tradition of this kind of theatre. Owing to current economic difficulties puppeteers can no longer make a living from their art, prompting them to turn to more lucrative professions. Tourism has contributed to reducing the quality of performances, which were previously aimed at a local audience only.”  http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/RL/00011

In India we saw “dumbed down for the attention span of a tourist” versions of folk performances. 

Imagine the performance…..

In India I could have watched the puppet show far longer than it was performed.  And in Japan too. 

Puppets for sale in many shops.

Lots of cyclist, so lots of bicycle shops.