Today I bought a cellphone and took a 7 hour train to Taormina. First, an amazing breakfast on the roof of the hotel. Breakfast means cheese, cold cuts, bread, fruit, yogurt, nutella, nuts, orange juice, coffee, more coffee. The train was a series of compartments, each with 6 people. Pretty scenery outside of Rome, but then a lot of what you would expect to be right next to the train tracks. At stops, men with little carts board the train to sell drinks and sandwiches. I overheard a long, very confusing conversation about Italian politics. Two people in our car in an argument over whether or not trains are always late south of Naples. We passed an excessive number of half competed abandoned construction projects along the southern toe of Italy. You could tell from the train that some of these little seaside towns had been hit hard by the recession.
Was able to do a sketch of some buildings in Rome during the ride:
Will color in more later
The exciting part of the ride is the ferry to get from the mainland to Sicily. They load the whole train onto the ferry. This doesn’t seem like a very efficient process. The boat ride itself takes 20 minutes, but the whole process took an hour and a half. Then Sicily! We arrived late at a train station at the base of the mountain at Taormina. A taxi drove us VERY FAST up a windy cliff road. Then we walk up into town for a great dinner. I had pasta, which was a mixture of breadcrumbs, tomatoes, and sardines. Then the fish of the day, which was fantastic. Then bed.
This place is very very pretty
