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Published: September 28th 2008
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Cathedral
A panorama of the cathedral in Palermo Woke up at 0630am on Wed morn to torrential rain. With a 40min walk to the train stn I had a slight sinking feeling - perhaps this was not going to be the easiest trip? Luckily, Keith our host had also heard and offered a lift. The drama really started when we arrived in Cosenza. In keeping with ancient Paul tradition lack of planning would feature heavily throughout the journey.
We got off the train, fully expecting to jump on a taxi straight to AVIS and our car. Unfortunately, there were no taxis outside the stn. And, according to staff, we were unlikely to get one. A number 26 bus was suggested so we waited in the pissing rain sharing umbrellas with two amused students who, upon leaving, pointed out the bus shelter 10yards behind us - DOH! I was getting fed up at this point and decided to try and phone a taxi from the local hotel. Luckily, the concierge was a good guy, happily phoning one for us. The car hire had also been a slight worry, I only had my photocard - no paper counterpart. Several panicked phone calls the day before to AVIS and the DVLA
Cathedral arch
Another panorama, again used CS2 to merge. and I was assured a faxed copy would suffice, a bargain at £5. It did, and we were soon on our way.
Leaving Cosenza was a simple matter of a roundabout and a slip road. I was glad I'd booked with AVIS - couldn't have been easier. The weather was not playing ball though - it rained for most of the two hour drive to the ferry at Scilla. I bought our ticket for 60 euros along with two ice-creams, expecting to wait for 30mins at most. Two hours later, we were finally on the ferry. Another fine example of Paul Heath planning and a severe blow to our tight schedule. Fortunately, the ferry crossing was uneventful - about 20mins long. We used the sat-nav for the first time on the other side, Messina is a sprawling place and not a particularly nice introduction to the island. Taffic was insane and I had my first experience of the inner-city Italian chaos - enjoyed it immensely!
We had around 200k to drive to Palermo from the ferry. Had we got on when planned we would've had plenty of time to check in and go out for a meal. However,
View from hotel
Couldnt have been more central. Great value for money the delay on the ferry cost us dearly and we finally arrived in Palermo around 1930 - over 10hours of travelling! I felt an injection of excitement was required at this point and programmed the sat nav with the wrong address. What should have been an easy road straight to the hotel Regina turned into a mini tour of historic Palermo, complete with rush hour traffic. Wonderful....Previous experience has taught me to pull over, breath deeply and enter a zen state. The sat nav then started to spazz out, rotating the map at various speeds and changing our destination without input. I momentarily lost my zen and stuck the heid in it.....We must have looked a right pair of mugs - walking around holding it like a divining rod. "Jump us! We are tourists with lots of money!" I asked several people where the hotel was, two cops and a barmen gave similar answers so we headed up in the approximate direction - without success. Luckily, Hannah had a great guidebook, with a decent map of the city, so we eventually managed to find the hotel and returned to move the car.
Celebratory high-fives were exchanged.
Hannah was
Inside the cathedral
Me looking sexy in front of some religious thingymajig sick the next morning so I had a wander round the city for a couple of hours. Palermo is a nice place with a good vibe. The historic centre has some amazing architecture. Bauildings are a strange mix of the old and new. I got back to the room just before midday to a recovered Hannah. We both went out and had a walk around the cathedral. Fortunately, there were relatively few instances of archways, thus we were able to cover considerably more ground than previous occasions. We were debating a journey on an open top sightseeing bus but decided instead on a couple of hours making out in the park square - a welcome distraction from the chaos of the city centre. We strolled back to the room about 1700ish and picked up the laptop, sitting in the cattdrale piazza until the sun was low. A nice end to the day.
Alarms were set at 7am for the 400k return trip the following morning. We slept in, waking around 0730 and rushing to get our stuff together. I had foolishly not drank enough the previous day, and was pretty dehydrated and shaky. After forcing a pepsi, mars bar
and pannini down I felt slightly more alive and we headed off, setting the sat-nav for fuel as we were on the red. Once again it decided to spazz out in the middle of 6 lanes of chaotic traffic.....
......After my aneurysim a quick decision was made to head for the shoreline away from the worst of it. We were lucky to find a plethora of petrol stations on this road and the sat nav got us out the city easily enough. The drive back was as uneventful as Italian traffic can be. No lengthy wait for the ferry this time, we were soon well on our way to Rogliano. Allbeit a little sadly, we'd both had a great time. Total distance was circa 800. Would have been shorter minus the 30k detour back onto the autostrade - mainly Hannahs fault (I am an infallible driver!)
After our detour and once my blood pressure returned to normal we jumped in a taxi back to the train station, a rip off as I didnt confirm the price - 25 euros! The guy was pretty entertaining tho. Hannah, however, looked like she wanted to kill him....We were both glad to arrive
back at the house to Marias nice cooking!
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Jeeayme lurr
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Mad Fanny Saints
Here mate a seen that wee diddy wae eez worn oot knees (fae gettin' pumped up the erse) geen ye pish! ahd've stuck the heed in um masel' hud a been there! And as for that big nancy c**t hidin' the wee boay unner eez jaiket???