Dear reader – yesterday’s post is a reflection on how much information you can find out if you spend a few hours on the interwebs, talking to people in the tourist office, and going to the train station information counter – not much! Maybe we are just trying things that are too tricky – like not going from one major centre to another, or stopping in one town for a few hours before going on to another. But that aside, yesterday we caught the bus at 9:00am for the two hour ride to Catania, got to our accommodation early and dumped our bags and headed back out to the train station via the city centre to try and find out how we can get to Lecce overnight. We’d heard that there was a train with sleeper, but apparently there isn’t. There was also no train to Lecce overnight on Sunday either. Catching a bus could work, but we thought it might be a bit hard on our travel weary bodies to sit up all night. We decided to think some more about how we might accomplish the next leg of our trip…
Wandered back into the centre just as the duomo opened and we checked out the some great statues/carvings, particularly the crypt/mausoleum/sarcophagus of Bellini (famous opera composer who died young). Then went and visited the Greco/Romano teatro – amazing to see this old theatre just off the main street and tucked away in amongst houses etc. It had actually been built over with houses and an aerial photo from the 1930s shows homes built along the curve of the theatre, but none of it to be seen. They’ve done a great archeological job digging the theatre out of the residential development and have also created a nice museum out of one of the houses that was built into the old external wall of the theatre. They’d found some amazing artefacts when excavating the theatre, lots of oil lamps, coins, some nice glass and pottery items. I keep finding it amazing that people just built layer upon layer without a seeming to be interested in the history contained below. Had a picnic dinner while planning a trip up Etna for the next day.
This morning we did some more interweb searching to check the options for travelling tomorrow – we want to visit Taormina for a few hours, back on the train to Messina, cross the Straits to Villa San Giovanni, then maybe stop in Cosenza and then try and cross the mountains to Crotone… All got a bit frustrating and we wasted a couple of hours getting nowhere again! Slightly disappointed we’d missed the morning markets, but we had to head off to the bus terminal because we had to catch the 11:20 bus to Etna. Bus took us to Nicolosi and then we had to change to another to do the next leg up the mountain where the car parks are and lots of tourist shops. Amazing to drive up through lava flows and to see how the lava solidifies in basalt/blue stone and has a layer of flaky crust on top. We decided to catch the chairlift up to 2600 metres and then take a jeep/bus up to 3000 and have a walk around with a guide, while Maryann stayed behind at Rifugio Sapienza. We sat in a small six person gondola and drifted up the mountain over the grey scree of volcanic detritus which mostly looks like grey dust. Beautiful blue skies with great views down to the city and the coast line. It was quite fresh and windy when we got out (thankful we’d brought our jackets) and wandered around for an hour with our guide telling us what sounded like the same story each time about eruptions, destruction, vents, craters etc. We walked through a little one with some steam venting and could see the yellow stain of sulphur around another vent hole. No molten lava or anything, but slightly scary to think it erupted only a few years ago with a display of fireworks for a few days. Wendy found that under the rocks little lady birds were hibernating and wonderful to see their colours contrasted on the grey rock. On the way down in the chairlift we smiled at some people walking down in the grey dust, up to their ankles in the sand/rock. Back down the mountain on the bus and a free ride as the ticket machine was broken – we got lots of shrugged shoulders from the driver and other who hopped on while we were coming down got on for free too.
Back at the bus/train terminal, we went back to the train info and managed to score a helpful lady with fairly good English who got us sorted for some train trips tomorrow. We decided not to do the overnight trip and found some accommodation in Cosenza which would mean we only had a 5 hour train the next day (but not over the mountains as we’d hoped but via Sibari). We had a late dinner at small restaurant that didn’t have an inside – all the tables were set up in a small piazza behind the kitchen. The maitre d’ was a cheerful enough fellow who help us translate the menu and we settled for the 15 euro tourist menus that would get us a drink and a primo & secondo dish. Our waiter couldn’t smile, and seemed to be working under sufferance – seem lots of people take no pleasure from serving others. Strange. Not everyone behaves this way, but it seems many have this disposition. The soccer was on a TV and the muted blarping of the plastic trumpets filled up the small square. We had some nice pastas but didn’t appreciate the maitre d’ always asking, “Molto bene?” (fishing for compliments). The girls tried a mixed fish dish, and while palatable it didn’t have much flavour, class, or style, and more than its share of bones..
