Chapter 28: Goodbye Sicily - Sleepless in Bari

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Chapter 28

Goodbye Sicily - Sleepless in Bari

They arose at midday and caught the 14.00pm (stopping service) to Messina. The journey had been described as a scenic route. The reality was a little different, upon leaving Toarmina and pretty much all the way to Messina, run down suburbs presented the only views. Once in Messina, they wanted to leave as soon as they arrived, like many transit towns, there were several undesirables staring at our two around the station area, this town needed to be transited quickly. In town, there were some nicer area, especially the main square with a fabulous (Swiss like) bell tower.

They soon realised they would not be able to get on the train and had to catch the ferry instead, eventually leaving Sicily at 17.30pm. Martin at this point had run out of cigarettes and was beginning to get a little irate. They arrived at Villa San Giovanni, a little better than Messina, but again a pretty uninspiring place where they would have to stay until 23.10 for the train to Bari. They walked around for what seemed like an eternity trying to find a place that sold cigarettes but to no avail, even the self service machine had a timer on them which didn’t allow you to buy them until 21.00 (how bizarre that people’s habits were controlled by timers on machines!)They stumbled across a very friendly bar for food and drink and the kindly waiter let Martin have one of his own cigarettes.

Around 20.30 they finally found a machine that worked (obviously it wasn’t working properly as it had given the smokes out before 21.00). It was already beginning to feel like a very long day. They came across a hotel restaurant where the rather chubby chef couldn’t have been friendlier. Extra antipasti, penne ( a little undercooked) and a fabulous steak with chips, they were quite replete. The chef even gave them some take away boxes with food in it to take with them for the long overnight journey to Bari.

They said their farewells and fortunately around 22.45 the train arrived at the station which they were allowed to board. Incredibly it wasn’t a sleeper with couchettes so they managed to find an empty compartment, closed the curtains, turned the lights off and pretended to be asleep. It was fairly comfortable, and the 400 mile journey was going to take a staggering 9 hours. Miraculously, though many were deterred, they retained the compartment to themselves but were awoken every twenty minutes as the train must have made some twenty or so stops.

They arrived at Bari at almost 08.00am, totally shattered but happy to have had the privacy. Highlight: Finding a machine that sold cigarettes

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