Another day in Palermo

The breakfast room was full and most of the food trays empty when we arrived at 8:15am. A large tour group was just leaving and the staff were probably cheering their departure. It appears that one of the group had taken a glass of juice from one of the juice dispensers but failed to turn off the tap afterwards. Juice was flowing into the catch basin and all over the table  beneath it, soaking all the adjacent glassware and pouring onto the floor 🙄🙄. Naturally any requests for cappuccino etc. were on hold till they cleaned up the mess. So breakfast took a little longer than planned, but we still managed to make it to the city centre by 9:30.
  We spent the morning touring a couple of churches, the other 2 markets as well as a monastery. Susanna took a rain check on the latter since it involved a hike up several flights of stairs leading up to  a rooftop walkway several stories up. I managed to take some great photos of the surrounding city and the adjacent waterfront.
  We then headed back to the hotel for a quick lunch and a 30 minute siesta before returning to the city centre for a tour of the Teatro Massimo, the largest Opera House in Italy and the third largest in Europe. Seating almost 1200 patrons on about 7 different levels the featured performances were the Barber if Saville and La Traviata. With tickets ranging from 20 Euro for the “nosebleeds” and a high of 120-140 for the Royal Box (assuming no dignitaries were using it) it is not really all that expensive compared to a typical Arena concert in North America.
 Following the 30 minute tour we took a leisurely walk back to the hotel (1.4km) On the way back we window shopped a number of real estate offices where higher end properties were listing at a million plus but smaller apartments ( 80 sq meters or 800 sq ft )were listing for 60 and up, so less than $100,000 Canadian. So I’m not coming back....
 I’m kidding, I’m kidding, but..........
 We met our tour group for an orientation session and dinner at 7:30 tonight. Our group is larger than expected (24) - mostly Aussies and New Zealanders with 2 other Canadians. There may be a few drop outs by tomorrow morning as a major Australian travel agency folded a few days ago. This has left at least half the group with cancelled payments to the hosting tour group. The few we talked to simply paid for their tour twice, hoping insurance will reimburse them at a later date. This would rarely happen in Canada but we have a different set of rules regarding travel agencies going broke.
 The tour officially starts at 7:45 tomorrow morning so the alarm is set for 6am.
   We do a short city tour in the morning before leaving the city for an afternoon visit to the seaside town of Cefalù to visit its famous cathedral before taking a 2 hour trip to the east coast and the city of Catania. This will be our home for 3 nights while we explore adjacent sites.
 Our tour guide, a young woman named Valentina speaks Italian, Spanish and Eengleesh🤦‍♂️. Susanna and I actually found her Spanish to be easier to understand than her English, so we might have some issues.
When we asked her why she was providing more details in Spanish than she was in a English, she told us we were “listening too hard” LOL. She’s playing with the wrong guy if she thinks I’m not going to jerk her chain at least a couple of times over the next week.
 My uncle always told me I was a “proper Geordie shit stirrer” and I wear that badge with pride! LOL