yet again.
Palermo 3

Yesterday, May the first,  Labour Day,  was a very variable day. It started off well. We went to the local market – very crowded and noisy;  lots of people enjoying barbecues of fish and round spiral sausages. The aroma of food grilling,  mixed with the scents  of heat soaked people and fruit and vegetables was quite a heady sensation. Somehow we squished our way through all these people and managed to buy a beautiful looking fish so that Jacek could fulfil his desire to cook, especially as our Airbnb has a very  well equipped kitchen. In the way back we patronised our friendly local green grocer and supermarket where we are now, after two days,  already recognised,  and went back to the flat to cook. 
All went well. Jacek  fried the fish in the special Sicilian spices that we had bought;  he made a wonderful tomato salad topped with croutons and we washed it all down with a lovely bottle of wine. And. then we had a rest. Of course. Jacek had a nap and I settled down to write my blog when disaster struck. 
I wanted to delete just one photo and managed to get rid of everything I had written. I was so fed up and angry with myself you cannot imagine. I couldn’t face starting again so I read my novel. I’d brought lots of books with me, so  that made me feel a bit better but not much. Eventually, my husband woke up and we decided to go for a walk.  We decided to go towards the Harbour and see if there were any Cafes or restaurants there. Jacek was a trifle pessimistic about this,  ( we’d already looked yesterday)  but I, ever hopeful, thought we should push on.
By now it was getting dark and we didn’t really know where we were. The area seemed to be full of grand palazzos and wide boulevards  crisscrossed with narrow,  surprisingly well-lit,  little alleyways. We walked on,  getting a little bit hungry,  when quite by chance, we came across a restaurant which had been on the list that I had found before we set of.  We walked in and surprisingly they found us a table inside.  We had a nice meal. Not as nice as, it has to be said,  as the day before,  when we stumbled upon a Michelin star restaurant,  where the food was fabulous.  That  was a real  discovery . Last night’s meal,  however, hit the spot, and, quite  replete, we started the long walk home. 
We knew it would be a  considerable walk, but we didn’t anticipate just how long.  We both thought we knew where we were going,  and so we headed  happily off to the left. We tried to avoid some carousing crowds and so we made,  so we thought,  some allowances for little changes of direction.
It was beginning to be very late.  Despite Google Maps telling  us that we were half an hour away from home, it took us over an hour to get to somewhere recognisable.
The streets of Palermo  are in a parlous state. Potholes everywhere. Cracks in the pavements. Great big lumps of stone that have fallen off some ancient buildings just left randomly  in the street. Loads  of dilapidated and decrepit buildings,  some boarded up and some obviously still inhabited. Scaffolding and overflowing skips and rubbish bins. Pockets of extreme darkness interspersed with the neon lights coming from frequent  all night shops. We walked along some very wide streets. which seemed to lead to nowhere and through  some very eerie curved alleyways where shadows loomed and yet more rubbish bins overflowed. The detritus everywhere was quite overwhelming. I was surprised (and relieved) not to see any rats,  but we did see a lot of wildcats which are very thin.  We trudged on.  We were not singing happy tunes.  By this time I was clinging onto Jacek for dear  life.   It was dark, slippery and unpredictable. I needed to go to the loo. 
I wasn’t exactly scared,  as all the people we came across were either young lovers who were obviously not interested in us or little crowds of friends who had been out partying.  but it was just the fact of not knowing exactly where we were which made me feel uncomfortable. We had been warned that there are no taxis in Palermo but I did not entertain that possibility. I believe it now! 

We serendipitously arrived at the train station which was beautifully lit up, but totally deserted. We still didn’t know where we were,  so we walked on. Google Maps, as is its wont, wobbled its arrow in every direction. You couldn’t see the moon so couldn’t be guided that way; we had to trust in instinct and maybe a little bit in Google. 
And then suddenly, quite unexpectedly, we saw the first café we used the day after we arrived,  which is across the road from our palazzo. 

You can imagine the relief. 
I just wish I had had a paper map!