Palermo

24th-27th September 2009

We had spent some time doing some research on finding the best way to cross Sicily to the capital of Palermo, and it wasn't the easiest of journeys. We were going to have to catch 2 different trains, for a total travel time of about 4 hours. We'd packed up our stuff early and headed on down to the train station, luckily the rain had mostly subsided by now and it was just the wet ground that was yucky. We'd bought tickets and we're going to have to wait for an hour or so before we could get on a train. We headed out to the platform and found lots of trains and people just milling around, so we thought we'd ask a few people to find out what was going on. Turns out that the earlier train that we thought we'd missed was of course delayed, and we could jump on it. We raced over and found seats and got settled and ready to go. We ended up sitting on the train at the station for over an hour. We eventually found out that because of all the rain, massive rocks had fallen onto the tracks and no trains were able to get anywhere. After we got going, it was about an hour and a half until we got to Messina. We thought we'd re-evaluate travel options to Palermo from here, maybe try to find a bus or something but we also found the only other train travelling to Palermo left in 5 minutes so we didn't really want to risk it. We did amazing race style running to buy tickets then back to the train. We didn't really need to in the end because of course it was delayed leaving!

The train journey took us along the Northern coast of Sicily, and for most of the trip the train ran directly beside the beach. Lovely scenery, as the sky was blue for the most part (a sight we hadn't seen in a few days). The train ended up being almost an hour late into the station, and by the time we got to Palermo we were so hungry as we hadn't eaten a thing all day except for a tub of yoghurt and a banana we had at 8am. So almost 8 hours after we left our hostel in Taormina we finally arrived in Palermo, and we didn't even make it out of the station before we had to stop for food. After a quick Maccas feed, we ventured on to our hotel which was only about 5 minutes walk away and very easy to find. It was a pretty shabby looking building from the outside, but once you got into the inner courtyard it was pretty cool. It looked like an old Palace, but no one had shown it any love in quite some time, which was sad. We made our way up one of the most impressive (yet run down) staircases and checked into our dodgy little hotel. We were pretty knackered after all the train travel, so we just thought we'd check out the area around the hotel in the hope of trying to find an internet café that opened early in the morning (so we could listen to the Saints in the Grand Final).The area where the hotel was located was really dodgy. It was the Bangladeshi/Indian/Nigerian area, and they were all hanging around the streets and being scary. Very glad I wasn't staying here alone, because it was probably the shadiest place we'd been (With the exception of all of Naples). After some dinner we called it a night pretty early on.

The next morning the weather seemed to be ok, so we set out to explore the city. After a stroll up the road we found the intersection that divides the city into its four quarters. Each corner of the building had a lovely statue and fountain with some plaques. It was obviously pretty significant because there were loads of people just hanging around taking photos. Nearby we checked out a pretty large and impressive 'water feature' and took the required photos. We continued into the centre of the city passing some nice architecture. Once we got to the middle of town, we didn't really have any ideas of what to go and see, so we found the local tourist office. Dan wanted to make a trip by bus to nearby Corleone, to catch up with "The Family", but the people in the tourist office were no help at all (In fact I don't think the first guy we'd spoke to had even heard of it). We left the office with still no idea of things to do, so we just wandered. As we were walking (We headed down to the port) it of course began to rain again. After passing a few markets and looking in a few different shops and churches, we started to get really wet and decided to take a break, so we made the big trek back to the hotel. We stopped in at an Internet café for half an hour to wait out the heavy downpour, and did some more research on what to visit, how to get to Corleone, and to find somewhere to watch the footy. The rain never eased up so we just retired to the hotel late afternoon before heading out to grab some dinner at a nearby restaurant.

The next morning we were up bright and early, thanks to the first quarter score text from Cheryl and we headed down to a nearby Internet café that told us that they'd be open at 7am (We were going to be able to catch the last three quarters) but when we got there, there was no one in sight. We walked up and down the street that our hotel was on (Luckily we were in the 'immigrant' area and there was a multitude of internet cafes within a small area) but we couldn't find a place open. We ended up finding a place a bit further up the road and settled down to a live radio stream of the match. Dan did a bit of searching and ended up finding a live video stream, and we were able to watch the last quarter - although in the end I would've probably preferred not to watch it at all. The poor girl working in there must've wondered what the hell we were doing, sitting with earphones in, while I'm screaming at the computer screen. After I'd shed a few tears with Nick Reiwoldt and Luke Ball we paid the hefty fee and set off.

As it was still early we thought that we'd head up to a church a little way out of town. As the weather seemed ok, we thought we'd walk it rather than try to figure out the buses. It turned out to be about an hour-long walk, through some more sketchy neighbourhoods. We saw some pretty smashed up cars that had had nearly every removable part stolen from them. We eventually found the church that we were looking for, paid the donation entrance fee and headed down into the crypt. What was so special about this place was that the crypt held thousands of Capuchin monks that were 'buried' down there. In reality it was just thousands of dressed skeletons mounted on the walls. Some of them weren't even fully decomposed and the smell of the place reflected that. After now seeing many weird things with human remains, this place definitely won as the creepiest. Dan hated it. We walked the path through the eerie place quite quickly, looking at the soldiers, still in their uniforms and the children, still in their little cot things, and got out pretty quickly. Regardless, it is still a highlight of the trip

We made the walk back into town laughing at signs and shops along the way. Dan wanted to go and apply for a job at the Titti School, while I looked in the windows for the Sexy Duck shop. We stopped off at the massive Palermo Cathedral. A nice looking building, with a nice interior, but after the hundreds of other churches we've seen, this one failed to impress me. We grabbed a quick lunch of some arancini (Sicilian dish - Rice balls with cheese and veggies - Best ones we've had so far) and continued on more walking. Palermo is known for its markets so we thought we'd go and check a few of them out. Mostly it was meat, fruit & veggies and seafood, but some had some nice little crafts. The rest was all junky clothes, watches and imitation wallets and bags. There were people everywhere making their way through the little laneways that were about 1.5m wide. Every now and then you'd hear some beeping and people flinging themselves out of the way, next thing there'd be some 10-year-old kids flying through on scooters. We ended up having to buy a new suitcase so we could take all the extra stuff we'd picked up over the last 2 months back to London. I let Dan pick out the suitcase and of course he chose a red and navy blue one.

We spent an hour or so hanging out at the hotel for a bit before heading back out to get some dinner at another nearby restaurant. On the walk home we stopped in at a cake shop/bar and picked up some desserts. We got a selection of mini cheesecake things, chocolate crepe things and some sort of torte. They were really cheap, if only we had've discovered them when we first arrived in Palermo.

We called it a night quite early as we had to be up at 5am to make our way out to the airport to catch our flight home.

After we eventually made it back to London, we found that the train lines from Stansted into the city weren't working at we'd have to catch a bus instead. So instead of a 30 minute train ride, we ended up making a 2 hour bus trip, and then we were heading out to a hotel we'd booked for a few nights, but the tube wasn't running so we had to catch replacement buses. We eventually arrived at the hotel in London at 6pm - more than 12 hours after we set off from our hotel in Palermo. It was an epic journey.

So after almost 11 weeks on the road, and a s***load of cash it was all over. It felt as though we needed a holiday, but we needed to get ourselves sorted so we could get working again to save up and do it all again.