Sicily Bound
This week was the first time I’ve been travelling and have woken up in the morning with no concrete plans. After two nights in Matera I knew I wanted to start heading south, towards Sicily. The drive was about nine hours away, if I went directly. But I wanted to break up the trip rather than doing it all in one go. After all, I had time.
I scanned a map of Southern Italy the night before, weighing up my options. I could spend some time in Apulia - the heel of the boot of Italy - but that was not really on the way. Whilst I wasn’t in a rush, I did want to get to Sicily sooner rather than later. I looked over Calabria - the toe of the boot. Sure, there were lots of small villages and seaside towns that were popular in the summer, but there weren’t any hostels to stay in. I was happy to spend a night or two in a B&B but a lack of hostel accommodation is usually a good indicator of there being limited things to see and do in a destination.
My other problem was that the transport out of Matera wasn’t great. There were some buses which ran to Bari, in the opposite direction to where I wanted to travel, but they only seemed to go to the airport. So if I wanted to get to Bari proper, I would have to get a bus and then catch the metro. It seemed like a lot of effort for a place that was a one hour drive away. There was also a train which, despite having a slick new station near the centre of town, had not been recommended by other tourists due to its unreliability and general slowness. I didn’t really want to go to Bari but there were no direct connections in the direction of Scilly. I had more options out of Bari. So I decided I should get to Bari and then reassess. Would I stay in Bari or keep going? I wasn’t sure.
When I awoke that morning I got dressed swiftly, put my bag on my back and headed down to the station. I was going to catch the train. Sure it wasn’t reliable but I hadn’t booked anything else so I had nothing to lose. I bought a ticket and waited for the train to arrive - which it did, on time. On the train I made some more decisions. The train would arrive at around nine in the morning. I could stay in Bari or get on the bus to either a small town in Calabria or continue on the bus all day to Catania in Sicily. The bus left about forty-five minutes after the train arrived. I decided that it was not worth stopping in one of the small towns. So it all depended on whether the train would run on time. If it arrived on time, and if I could get a bus ticket and book accommodation before the bus left, I’d head to Sicily. If not, I’d be staying in Bari.
The train continued to run on time. At Altamura, I changed trains. The transfer ran smoothly. The train soon arrived in Bari and I had forty-five minutes to get a ticket. At that point, it seemed like I had plenty of time. But it turned out that there was no bus ticket office nearby. I quickly managed to find some Wifi, booked a ticket and a place to stay in Catania and made my way to the bus stop.
The bus journey through Calabria was pleasant. Next to me sat an old Italian woman who spoke on the phone for a large amount of the nine hour journey. Immediately after sitting down she made it very clear to me, despite me lacking the ability to speak Italian, that I should move from my assigned seat next to her and to the free seat in the row opposite. I was fine with this except that it meant that every time that the bus stopped I had to stop and check that I wasn’t sitting in someone else’s seat. But I went along with it.
We reached Cosenza and a large group of tourists were waiting at the bus stop. I moved back to my original seat, anticipating that it would soon be taken. This very much infuriated the old Italian woman who continued to tell me off, in Italian, despite me saying repeatedly, in Italian, that I didn’t speak Italian. (The only Italian I do know is mostly based around food and restaurant-related jargon and so I didn’t think responding to her requests to move seats with “No I don’t want anything to drink” would have helped.) In any case, no one ended up asking me to move back to my seat next to the old woman. She eventually got off in Messina at which point someone else came on the bus and told me that I was sitting in their seat.
Pictures featured are from Catania and Taormina.
