The New York Times today featured a piece on travelling to Catania, and here we are at the station in Villa San Giovanni, the last stop before our ‘train crossing’ to Messina, Sicily, doing the same trip as he describes!
I do not quite know what to expect, when Fred booked our train ride there was no mention on how we crossed this strategic bit of sea separating Sicily from the mainland.….
Number 29:
A very strange train experience, the boot of Italy to Messina, Sicily.
SO Frugal Traveler writes – “at the tip of the boot, the entire train was loaded – passengers and all - onto a large ship and ferried to Sicily. Once unloaded in Messina, we continued in the same train down Sicily’s coastline, past Taormina and into Catania Central”
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| Train ride across to Messina, Sicily |
And so we did, boarded the train in Villa San Giovanni, sat as it was delayed, we were then shunted onto the ferry, customized for these trains! We then got off, looking across to Sicily for the first glimpse of the golden Madonna gleaming in the sun, a quick half hour, back to our seats on the train and made our way to Catania, and our first glimpses of Mount Etna.
All very strange, goodness knows what politics lies behind this process!
