We travelled first class on the train down from Naples to Messina in Sicily. You’d expect that for the extra money you’d get a window to look out of. Apparently not as passengers in every second row found out. What we did get was a train that boarded a ferry and crossed over to Sicily from the Italian mainland. Now that’s pretty cool. Just think of the possibilities. You could access the Trans Siberian from Alaska. Sri Lanka from India, the Marrakesh Express from Gibraltar, the UK from France – oh that’s already available underground in both directions or by inflatable dinghy in one direction if you have no legal right to be in the UK. I believe I can be locked up for saying that now. What a retarded world we live in.
So the surly waiters in Naples have been left far behind to be replaced in Syracuse, by a delightful young lady (she’s Argentinian) and a robot called Lola which delivers food to tables, I believe. It’s brother Leonard, is required to deliver stuff to rooms. The CB asked for tissues and a shower gell top-up. Apparently Leonard deliverd these things but we didn’t know because he couldn’t knock. Apparently he just waited outside the door. Something is missing here.
Getting to Syracuse from Messina was interesting, says he with characteristic English (I was born there) understatement. The hire car guy never mentioned the toll gates. Solution – pick one that doesn’t have a boom and just drive through. Red light? What red light? And driving on the right-hand side of the road is one thing but doing it in Italy with Italian drivers all around makes it a potential demolition derby. I’ve also discovered that on the highways where the purely academic speed limit can be up to 130km/hr, actual drivers either dawdle or pretend they’re Top Guns in a land hugging missile.
Road maintenance appears to be conducted the same way wherever you are in the world. Barriers are erected for miles for no good reason apart from maybe slowing the traffic down -ha!. If Italy had speed cameras especially in tunnels where the speed limit routinely drops from 130 to 80, the national debt would be paid off in a month. Speaking of tunnel’s, Sicily doesn’t appear to do hills. If it goes up, put a tunnel through it and if it goes down put a bridge over it. Sicilians prefer their roads flat it seems. This means that in a mountainous place like this the 400km+ journey we have just done from Syracuse to the Valley of Temples and back was about 75% bridges or tunnel’s.
And don’t ask me why it’s called the Valley of Temples because while the “temples” part is correct, it’s actually on a high ridge. Go figure. The Valley of Temples is Greek, dating back to 500 BC and if you’ve seen the Parthenon at the Acropolis in Athens, the one here is better preserved. Looks like it could have been thrown up last year provided there were a few thousand slaves available. As with the archeological park in Syracuse, Greek architecture, or its remains, is pervasive. The Romans kicked them out after a few hundred years and when they tried to utilise the Greek theatre for gladiatorial combat and especially fighting wild animals, found the ground level seats for dignitaries were a bit too close to the action so they built another one – completely enclosed and with the front row beyond the reach of a fully extended lion.