Sicilia

After 6 hours on the train, passing lots of vinyards, smooth, green country hillsides and little towns that only made me wonder what people’s lives were like who lived in these small, isolated little cities, we reached a stop called Villa S. Giovanni. The train halted and didn’t move for a good 20 minutes. Off to our right was a body of water filled with cargo ships and a huge mass of land out in the distance. After consulting the map, we realized that huge mass of land was Sicily. I couldn’t believe it...we made it. I finally arrived to the destination that has been nothing more than a distant thought, or obscure, unreal, fantastical, scary location where the Marino/Spinelli families are from. “Sicily” was always just a name, or a word that was used to describe my paternal family history, but I could never place an image with this word. I really knew nothing about it, other than it existed and it was probably out of reach of my reality. And here I was. I couldn’t help but think of my family, at home, mourning the loss of our last remaining connection to this “old world,” our mother land. I felt an overwhelming mixture of excitement, disbelief, awe, appreciation and then sadness for my Grandma Jean and family.
The train was then shakily and noisily loaded into a ferry. We sat on the train, underground in a big, industrial-looking dungeon with no idea what was going on in the outside world. The ferry transported us over the water as if in the belly of a whale, to Sicily. For the whole last 3 hours of the journey, 2 little old Italian ladies talked and talked and talked and talked. Sean and I smiled at each other, and I again thought of Grandma Jean and Aunt Subbi, who probably did the same thing at some point in time years and years before.
We continued along the coast, which was strangely to the east, winding our way through tunnels, among rocky cliffs, more little towns, beautiful, glittering, tropical beach resorts on the white hot sand along the cool clear green water. On the opposite side, Europe’s largest volcano, Mt. Etna sat proud and mean, reminding everyone who’s boss.
In contrast to the beautiful journey, Catania was not what we were expecting. It was a little rough. Kind of like a big city, with not a lot of people. It was hot, and dirty, and smelly, and a little uncomfortable. We were greeted off the train with strange stares by strange folks and no idea which direction to go. I grabbed a café, to wake up a bit and we started our walk to find the city center. We walked amongst garbage, and fish guts and a bunch of merchandise supply shops with fabric materials or car parts. We walked to the coast to find a big dirty port filled with cargo ships from China slowly creeping in and out. We caught a bus that we expected to take us to some sort of beautiful beach location where we could find a hotel and post up on the sand and dip in the sea. No such luck. We rode the bus for about an hour, along the coast, where there were beach resorts covered in graffiti with teenage hoodlums hanging out, and had an unpleasant similarity to a beach resort one would find in T.J. The bus ended at what looked like a garbage landfill. I refused to get off at any of the stops we saw, so we just stayed on the bus and rode it back to the city center. We walked around some more and finally found a pretty piazza and the main street that was lined with nice clothing shops and delicious smelling pasticcerie filled with real Cannoli Siciliani (con ricotta) and colorful marzipane. We began to feel more at ease and enjoyed the sights and the touristy shops for a while and realized that parts of Catania were actually really nice. We found a cute little bed and breakfast hotel over looking it all. The hotel cost more than we wanted to pay, so we named our price and the owner accepted (once I told him I was a Marino, he had the look of fear glazed over in his eyes and said “Va bene...ok...anything you want signorina”). We went out for a nice, rich Italian dinner of gnocchi alla gorgonzola and penne al salmone, where we sat outside in the warm night. We walked the whole city and explored the happening night scene, where strangely all bars were called “American Bar” and we even saw 3 Irish pubs. We ended the night with a sweet ricotta filled cannolo with pistacchi and once cockroaches started scattering across the piazza we were sitting in, it was time to call it a night and sleep peacefully in our air-conditioned hotel.

The next day, it was too hot to move outside, but we left our ice cool 17 degree (celcius) room to see the rest of the sights of Catania (there weren’t much) and a big farmer’s market with fruits, veggies, meats, cheeses, fish and shouting Sicilian men and little old people doing their morning shopping. We ate some cherries and fragolini (little strawberries) in the cockroach piazza, then headed north to a little city called Giardini Naxos and then Taormina, which I absolutely adored. Thanks to Frankie for telling us where to go the night before we left on our journey. It was a quiet little beach town with posh shops, expensive Italian restaurants, cafes and gelaterie high above a breathtakingly beautiful beach. We walked about a mile down a steep rocky cliff to reach the beach and “La Isola Bella”, a little island that we walked to through the shallow water. The crystal clear water sparkled bright aqua and we struggled to walk along the pebbly, rocky beaches. I was eaten alive by mosquitos and have the big, red, itchy bites head to toe to prove it. We spent 2 days there lounging in the hot sun on the beaches, swimming in the fresh cool water which was more like a gigantic lake since it was so calm, and exploring the little town, which a cable car took us to, from the beach because it was so high up. Sean also nearly gave me a heart attack by jumping from giant boulders that sat in the water and then playing with a jelly fish he found and pulled out of the water with a stick. The main piazza had a checkered ground and beautiful bright purple flowers everywhere. We ate traditional Sicilian pizza, which was different than Roman pizza, but also delicious, and plenty of granite (fruit icy) just to stay cool. Everywhere in Italy, sunscreen costs 15 euro which is over $20. I grudgingly bought a bottle since the sun was so strong and figured our skin protection was worth the ridiculous price. So, luckily neither of us burned and I am guarding that bottle with my life as it must last us through the summer. We found a hotel on the beach which was a completely different experience than Catania. It had a beautiful view, overlooking the water and beach resorts, however, the air conditioning was broken and our room remained at a miserable 90 degrees through the night. I woke up and tried to open the door to the balcony, which was stuck closed, until Sean nearly broke it open to get some air. The air outside was also hot and sticky and humid and I slept very little. The one bonus being that I sleepily caught an amazing sun rise over the ocean at about 4am. Overall Taormina was awesome and we both loved the relaxing atmosphere and this bright, sunny little city.

We took an over night train back to Rome, which left Taormina at 8pm and arrived in Rome at 6am. We quickly realized why the tickets were so cheap as soon as we boarded. We expected an empty train where we could sprawl out on the seats and sleep through the journey back home. However, the train was packed with people who apparently all had the same idea. It’s no secret that I hate teenage boys. Sean has told me many times that I can’t say that, but here I am saying it now. They are unnecessarily loud, greasy, annoying, arrogant and stink. With our clear misfortune, we shared a cabin with 4 of the rowdiest, teenage Siracusa soccer fans (serie D - the lowest division, by the way) and their 6 friends in the cabin next to us, who were all pumped up for a big game in Rome. To show the whole train how pumped up they were, they shouted, chanted and banged the windows for hours. When they finally fell asleep they had no problem propping their feet up on Sean’s seat and rolling over into my space. The hot, stuffy, stinky air was suffocating and we had no water, as we finished it within the first couple hours of the journey. I continued to get bitten by mosquitos, and was loosely in and out of sleep the whole time. At around 5am, the chanting and window banging began again, and we only had to endure it for the final hour before we finally arrived in Rome. I practically ran out of the train to never look back at those horrible boys. Needless to say, I got home, took a long cool shower and have slept most of the day away.