Saturday, May 6
The cab driver taking us to the train station was incredulous. “You can’t go to Palermo by train. It’s too far. You fly there.” Yes, you can. A high speed train to Villa San Giovanni, then transfer to an intercity that goes across the Straits of Messina on a ferry and continues to Palermo. It takes all day, but it goes along the coast.
So there we were in a first class coach (sounds expensive but it’s not) sitting across a table from each other drinking espresso and eating pastries and enjoying the countryside—farmland, villages, an occasional Roman ruin, empty beaches. The cab driver was wrong. This is nice.
We left Rome around 9:00 AM and got to Villa San Giovanni around 2:00. We transferred to the next train with only minor confusion. We could see the ferry in the nearby port swallowing a train. We were next. Some clattering as they split the train into smaller sections, some backing and filling, and we found ourselves in the train on a ferry going across the part of the ocean that Homer used in his tales for the home of sea monsters.
When we got to Messina on the other side the process was reversed and we headed into Messina station. On to Palermo. We had checked the current status on the website. We had asked the conductor. We were going to Palermo. Well, no. There was an announcement in Italian and English, “This is the last stop.” What? That’s it? Not even, “If you’re going to Palermo you’re out of luck.” Nobody around to ask. We all got off the train and accosted the first Trenitalia employee we found. He made a lot of phone calls and then, after much confusion, made an announcement in very fast Italian. A kind English-speakign Italian summarized for us. First, the train to Palermo is actually a bus. Secondly, nobody can find the bus. We got on a later train to Palermo. We don’t know if they ever found the missing bus. Maybe the Mafia took it. Dinner was a quick ice cream bar in the Messina station and some pastries we had bought on the ferry.
The next problem was that the hotel desk was open only until 8 PM, so we had to tell them we’d be late and plead with them to let us in. We tried phone (may or may not have left a message) and email, no response. We were making plans for what to do if we couldn’t get in the hotel when we got a WhatsApp from them. Now the next problem is get a cab in Palermo, competing with all the people on the crowded train. It turns out it was easy. The driver took off on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. Cars going every direction, many perpendicular to the flow of traffic and fast. There’s a logic to it we don’t understand. But we made it to the B&B. Next problem is getting in. It’s upstairs in a larger building with a big locked door. Someone finally let us in and we quickly fell asleep in our lovely room that we weren’t sure we’d ever see and slept well despite a wild passeggiata going on outside.